The Last Lifeboat

by DrTwit

For four years, Ruby and friends have been playing Remnant's top-selling virtual reality game. They awaken with no memory of life outside the simulation. A sinister conspiracy ties them all together and, if they want any chance of moving on, they have to confront their role in it. But what's left when your entire life turns out to be fictional? Can Audry Averg still be Ruby Rose?

21. The Power in Me

23000 words. About 33 pages according to word. Yeah... This chapter's a little long. And that's after cutting some stuff.

---

Ruby had never faced such understated, yet overwhelming malevolence before. She's seen spite, she'd seen people commit terrible deeds and swear on the violent ends they wished to pursue, she'd stared down the Queen of the Grimm as the woman drowned Ruby in venom about the fruitless nature of their mission and their loved ones; but she'd never felt it quite like this. The man, if she dared to call him that, sitting in front of her might as well have been a toxic cloud that seeped through every corner of the world. His mere presence disrupted her senses, choking her lungs, stinging her eyes, boiling her tongue, irritating her fingers, stealing her voice and overwhelming her heat with a pure, shameless hatred for her that she could hardly believe he was able to look so composed.

"I know, meeting your heroes can be so overwhelming, can't it?" His lips moved, his eyes thinned into dagger-like shapes to express his mocking joy, but his voice didn't feel like it emerged from his own lips. It was like watching a video of someone talking but with the audio and visuals out-of-sync, even if by a split second, your brain just knows that the audio is one tick out of place, it can't ignore the irregularity no matter how minor. "You wouldn't be the first to lose their voice around me. I try not to be so intimidating, but there's only so much one man can do."

He lounged around on his own personal throne, his seat stretching the full width of the limo's wide berth as well as pushed far back to give plenty of room for his long, snake-like legs to unfurl. Ruby, on the other hand, was crushed between two giant bodies, her seat curved at just the right angel that, no matter how much she pushed back, she'd still be hanging over the edge. From her perspective, it looked as if the walls of the vehicle narrowed at her end, making it not only cramped, but impossible to look anywhere but at the man of the hour.

She assumed this was all a part of his design, just as it was his intention to not engage her; he would fill the void of suffering silence with his voice, ensure she wasn't nodding off or distracting herself, but only she would be the one to truly start what she could only assume would be a morbid conversation. All escape routes were blocked, there was nothing to go back to, there was only the way forward and that was directly into his hands. Who else but a businessman would know how to so thoroughly lay on the pressure without raising a finger.

"What do you want?" She spat out, while her own vitriol could never measure up to whatever lay underneath that pleasant and pompous façade, she could at least be free with it.

He took his time to answer, of course, pulling a small martini glass from the recesses of his built-in bar compartment, pouring himself a drink that Ruby would assume she'd recognise as expensive if she knew anything about alcohol. He drew every second out, his eyes thoroughly watching out for every twitch of irritation that passed over her face, before idly stirring whatever concoction was brewed; tapping his metal stirrer against the rim, generating a screech that was just high pitched enough to sting her earlobes. "Oh, I simply wanted to clear things up. I've noticed you and my daughter's fellow misfits have been rather confused since you returned from your little dream vacation."

She wanted to speak, but she only found her lips tightening into a thin line, refusing to spill anything else. It was clear his words were carefully chosen, either to leave an impact, to get under her skin or ensure she grasped the information he had. With a single, casual sentence, he took any power she thought she could have, any surprises or cards left to hide. He knew exactly what they'd been up to and where they'd come from.

"There are many things I despise in this world, and one of the issues that offends my sensibilities the most is people being unaware of their place, where they stand in the great design of this life we've been gifted." He was careful as he brought the glass up to his lips, though Ruby thought this was more to avoid staining his facial hair than to bother her, still refusing to tear his eyes away with that intense gaze burning holes into her. "It is so important to know our position on the hierarchy, what is expected of us, what we can accomplish. I mean, the ship can't avoid the iceberg if the helmsmen doesn't know that their purpose is to steer the ship. The engines will fail if the engineer thinks he's the captain."

He refused to drink for a moment, thoughtfully swirling the glass in his hand as a sharp snort escaped his lips. "Imagine the chaos if a tyrant thought herself a revolutionary, or a killer thought himself a healer, or a dead-beat thug thought himself a hard-working father…" A pregnant pause drew Ruby in, watching as his smile returned, more sadistic than before as he raised the drink in mock toast towards her. "Or a rat thought herself a hero."

Ruby felt her teeth grinding down. He already knew he had her baited and hooked, but still refused to just get on with pulling his prize to him. "If you really know so much," She summoned her voice, speaking in a low whisper and desperately lashing out for something, anything, to bruise him. "wouldn't you know that cornering the least active member of our group for a wine-and-dine session is a waste of time? Your prize might just be slipping through your fingers this very moment."

For a second, he was distracted, eyes narrowed, but not on her, the space in front of her, as if he were keenly reading over a book she couldn't see. "Ah." It was almost robotic, the way his head snapped back into the moment, stiff and unnatural, his eyes focussing back on her. He took his first sip of his drink. "We needn't concern ourselves with our little friends now." Lips smacked with a satisfied gasp. "In fact, I'd wager that we'll never need to worry about them again."

Ruby stiffened. She already understood exactly what he meant, yet she still asked anyway. "What did you do?"

The laughter echo'd from all around her. "I informed the relevant parties of the injustices taking place under their very noses."

---

"Though one of them was already keenly aware of such matters, she merely needed… Courage to do what's right."

Jaune knew the pains of motion sickness all too well and, it appeared, so did Larry as he felt himself suddenly lurching to life. His stomach turned in on itself, his throat tightly clamping down on the vomit threatening to rise up and remind him why he had the nick name 'vomit boy'; all while his eyes widened at the unfamiliar setting. Well, not unfamiliar as in unknown, he recognised the tightly packed, spotless marble walls of the school he cleaned every day. It was unfamiliar as in he could have sworn that, just a second before, he'd been crossing the street from the Open Lotus, the morning shining at his back. And yet, one blink and blackness overtook him, his feet turning into a stumbling mess and the world distorting as if he were standing inside a moving bus.

"Daaaad, come on!" The shock of the boy's voice, as well as the incessant tugging on his arm shocked Jaune's urge to retch back down into the pits of his stomach, replaced with the desire to scream out in surprise. "Let's just go home already."

"W-What's… Where…" He stopped himself from finishing the question, taking one look at the boy's crestfallen expression and deciding that he didn't have it in him to ask where they were and imply, he'd forgotten whatever he and his son had done together. "What's wrong, Buddy?" Jaune himself was addled by how ominous the dreary halls of this hollow place looked at night, as well as the despicable smell of copper and bleach hitting him with the echoes of that night.

"We got our butts kicked." Junior huffed, kicking at the air with a heavy frown. Ah, right; the game! I was going to Junior's sports game. Why… Why can't I remember any of it?

"Nonsense, you did great out there." Jaune said without thinking, trying to remember what his dad would say after his own humiliating failures at big events. He might not remember what happened, but he was sure Junior couldn't have done worse than setting fire to a poor judge's toupee at a talent show. As he ran through 'Dad Support 101' in his head, he noticed his other hand wasn't free, burdened by a small bronze trophy boldly proclaiming, 'third place'. "It may not be a pristine gold goblet, but third place ain't half bad."

Junior tugged Jaune along, grumbling "Third place is for losers!"

Jaune snorted, tapping the trophy gently against the back of the boy's head. "Losers, says who? That genuine bronze there, Son. Not that cheap recyclable junk they use for participation trophies. Now those are for losers." He squeezed to boys' hand back, shuffling them along with a cheeky grin. "Besides, we know that game was rigged anyway. That ref was probably somebody's dad."

At this, Jaune was relieved to see that his son managed to crack a smile. "Yeah, Jared is such a cheat, I bet he was paying off the referee!"

Reaching back, Jaune found a fond quote that his own father had been so proud of himself for saying, even assuming the same position of leaning down close to ruffle the kid's hair as he repeated it. "It's better to lose honestly than win as a scumbag, Son. In my book, you're golden."

"Thanks dad!" The boy broke his grip to rip the trophy from Jaune's hand with excited glee, holding it close to his chest as he bounded on the balls of his feet. "I can't wait to show mom my trophy now."

Suddenly, Jaune's hand shot out, grabbing Junior by the shoulder and yanking him back. "Stay close." Despite the warm energy that emanated from his son, Jaune could never feel comfortable in this place, not by himself and not with his little boy any more than at arm's reach.

His eyes, awake and alert, peered over the empty halls as they moved towards the entrance, the hairs on the back of his neck at full alert. He knew what went down inside these walls when prying eyes were averted, he'd been apart of the deeds himself now, it was a black hole of depravity that threatened to encroach upon them and drag them into the blood-stained bowels if they weren't careful. He could imagine Cinder herself rounding a corner and catching a glimpse of them, such an image poisoning his cautious state with a mixture of disgust and spite; he would never allow her to so much as lay her eyes on his son, much less be in the same room as him. Not while he could help it, not while he still breathed.

Another part of him suffered a spike of fear at every turn of the hallway, mapping out the school from memory in his mind, hoping to whatever gods remained in this world that the next turn didn't leave him facing the staircase, the one that led down to the boiler room. It was a fear that pushed him to move faster, pulling little Jaune up into his arms so he could pick up the pace, so he could shield him from anything, just in case, just in case.

It didn't help that there seemed to be no life to be found around them, as if everyone had simply vanished from the premises the moment the game ended. There was a sense of safety in numbers, knowing that other eyes that, even if he didn't know them, he could trust to scream if anything was up. Instead, the only eyes upon him were that of the hollow armour displays, where the darkness hid all the gaps in the joints that would betray that the armour was empty and just for show. Then again, would even that convince him? With his luck, in this topsy-turvey reality, was it at all far fetched to expect the hollow knights to come to life and bare down upon him? He'd still take them over Cinder.

One last turn put the front entrance in view, dissolving some of the tension deep in Jaune's bones. The goal was in view, he just needed to get there and out the door. He knew, he just knew, they'd be okay the moment he could breathe the late-night air in and extinguish the pressure on his lungs. He didn't care how odd it made him look, he tucked his son in close and broke out into a jog, every voice in his mind unified in telling him to get as far away from this rancid place as possible, to ensure that none of his depravity stains his boy.

At least, that was the plan. But the figure stepping into the entrance way so easily empowered his flight response and made him stop dead in his tracks. He was about halfway to the doors, flanked by rows of lockers on either side and not much to run back to. He could only stare down the figure, who seemed to have gone as still as he felt from behind the glass, just waiting for him to move closer.

He blinked. He heard the door open.

He blinked. A footstep echoed across his mind.

He blinked. He placed Junior down and pushed the boy behind him.

He blinked. The light of the moon streaming through the open doors did nothing to illuminate the figure.

He blinked. Darkness flooded the hall as the lights died, their final gasp a puff of electrical sparks.

With the world shut out to his vision, all Jaune could observe was the sounds. The sound of his own ragged breathing, the whimpering of the boy against his leg, the rage of the rain beating against the exterior of the building and, most importantly, the footsteps. Heavy steps from small feet, their echoes accompanied by the screeching of friction between shoes and the floor polish. Their march continued, determined, consistent, undeterred by the sudden loss of power, only their objective ahead of them.

Jaune's hand dived into his pockets, desperately searching for something he could use to defend himself if this wasn't simply his paranoia driving him into a panic. If it came to it, he'd be prepared to brandish his scroll as a weapon. The metal grips could at least take an eye out if need be.

The footsteps were suddenly silenced, replaced with a guttural huff of short-lived breaths. They were loud too, placing the stranger close enough in front of Jaune to worry, almost right in his face; and yet he could feel their breath, only hear it loud and low in his ears. He couldn't hear any sudden moves, couldn't make out any shape before him, there was simply a presence there and it was staring at him- No, staring into him.

He swallowed his own whimpering, squeezing his son as close as he could, waiting for the stranger to make some sort of move, something that would at least let him understand what he was afraid of. But nothing came, they just continued to inhabit the space, leaving him in uncertainty. In the face of this, Jaune came to the conclusion that he'd have to make the first move himself. He took a moment to steel himself, waiting until his jittering had calmed down to a minimum, before reaching out towards where he assumed the figure stood, plunging his hand into the darkness-

Only for Pyrrha to grab his wrist.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Nothing announced the lights turning back on. No electrical fizzing, no flickering, no moan of power surging back through the building; they were simply on now, showcasing Pyrrha's utterly confused glare as Jaune's hand stretched out towards her face. "Uh…" He briefly considered asking the appropriate questions or explaining what happened, but the voice in the back of his mind told him he sounded crazy, that he was probably just tired, and he decided to try and save face. "I was… About to steal your nose."

"Please don't." Pyrrha said bluntly. Jaune expected her usual reserved mix between a glare and a curiosity-tipped glance but was surprised to be met with an almost fearful look. Her eyes never focusing on him, darting around him like she was expecting there to be more, this nervous energy extending to her body language as her shoulders shook under his gaze.

Her face broke into a more genuine look as Junior let go of Jaune's leg and threw himself against her, almost knocking her over. "Mommy! Mommy! Look what I won; we got third place!"

Recovering from the impact of the energetic mini-wrecking ball, Pyrrha crouched down give the boy a smothering kiss on the cheek before looking down to marvel at the trophy being presented to her. "Wow, is that real? Seems my little champion's already going the distance." When she had Junior in her arms, her shaking disappeared, anchored by the boy's embrace, even as he made exaggerated 'ew' noises in response to his mom kissing him. Jaune wanted to smile at the display, but the sense that something was wrong was still strong, so strong it overpowered everything else.

The way Pyrrha proceeded to slowly glance between Jaune and Junior, her eyes slowly falling to acceptance, only furthered that feeling. He recognised the look well, the same look he'd take on when he was trying to convince himself to hype himself up for something that was absolutely daunting in his eyes. "Jaune, why don't you go wait in the car? I need to talk to your father about something." She pulled away from the boy, nudging her head in the direction of the entrance as his face grew confused. At this, she cheekily added "There's a bag of 'Purple Party Pops' waiting for you."

Invoking his favourite sweets was all the convincing the little boy needed, letting out a sharp, happy squeal as he jumped to his feet and sprinted past her. Pyrrha and Jaune followed the boy's shrinking figure as he reached the entrance, tearing across the hall with the speed worthy of a marathon runner, a warm smile gracing both of their lips.

When the child was out of the way, Pyrrha's smile died to her heavy sigh. It wasn't just her smile that dropped, it was everything about her, her skin flushing, her lips puffing, her face taking on a sagging appearance; it was if the only thing keeping her together was the kid, and the moment he wasn't there everything unfurled to reveal how tired and stressed her body truly was.

And the first thing she said, after rising into a rigid, hunched over stance where she couldn't even meet Jaune's gaze was "I don't want you seeing him anymore."

Ice pierced his heart, frozen claws embedding themselves in his body, the sensation hitting him so fast his brain couldn't keep up with the pain. "Uh… W-What do you mean?"

Pyrrha shifted her weight onto her right leg, sweeping the left leg behind her, her stance low, an animal preparing the flee at the sight of a possible predator. "Jaune. I don't want you near… Near Jaune. Ever again." Her voice was strained by deep breaths and tiny whimpers, slowly gathering strength. "You can't see him. I… I won't let you anymore."

His mind caught up to the present just as his heart broke out into desperate cries, the full weight of such a scenario threatening to bring him to his knees. I can't… I can't… His lips quivered back and forth, desperate to find words to throw back at her, but he couldn't. I'm not ready. I'll never be ready. I just… I just met him, he's my son. I can't leave him behind! Not like… His nails dug into his palm as his grip tightened. Not like Larry- Not like I did.

"I should have never let you back into his life in the first place." She finally found it in herself to look at him, her entire expression feigning a strength the rest of her clearly didn't feel, trembling under the weight of it all. "There's a lot of things I… I should have never done, things I never should have allowed… But at least I can stop this now."

"I don't understand." Was the best Jaune could gasp out, moving his arms out to exclaim, but pausing when Pyrrha backed away, taking his movement as a sign of aggression. "I just… I thought things were going well. That-"

"That what?" Pyrrha, something about his words sparking a sudden fire in her belly, spat out with a hoarse cry. "That things could be normal? That it could all be fixed, and we just move on?" She kept her hands busy, wringing them together in step with the rise of her chest, as if she were squeezing her own lungs with every word. "This… This could never be fixed. Not with you here. You could never be fixed."

Any attempt to protest quickly died on his lips. What could he possibly say against that? The reality was, Jaune had no right to protest it, if anything, being able to get to this point in the first place was a privilege he never deserved. She was a woman scarred, abandoned and broken; and he was sure he was responsible for many of those scars. He abandoned his kid, he hurt her, he broke this family, what right did he have to go against her desires on the matter?

Now he was the one unable to look at her, his sigh carrying a thousand words left unsaid. "I… I really thought I could make it work this time."

"You said that last time too." Pyrrha's eyes were the first to well up with tears, gaining enough confidence to push herself forward, jamming her finger into his chest. "And the time before that, and the time before that. You say it every time, because it always worked on me. But… But not anymore…"

Jaune had never considered being a father back in the day, was one of those distant possibilities you never really thought about until you met the one who made you want to be a parent. He never understood it, not until he saw his own eyes staring back at him from the body of a little boy who called him 'dad'. Not until he'd already ruined it. Now, just as he was realizing how desperately he wanted to be a father, he was faced with the reality that he never could be. There was no making up for it, there was no extra chance, he'd thrown his family away and that was it. He'd hurt his son, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't hurt his son again, was there? Even in the game, where he should be facing a power fantasy where he got to right his wrongs, he still failed to save Pyrrha, to be anything but a dishonest burden to her and his team.

It was hard to let go, but he knew it was the right choice. "If… If that's what you…" Even agreeing with the sentiment, it was still hard to make out the words, his world crashing down around him once more, only this time it wasn't the fault of some giant squid Grimm or a conspiracy; this was just him. "Do what you think is best. I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry…"

He turned to find a different exit to the building, assuming he wasn't going to get a final goodbye with Junior and, quite honestly, not sure he had to strength to look at the boy knowing it would be their last meeting. "I know you'll give him the be-"

"We're not done." Something new entered Pyrrha's voice, something Jaune couldn't really explain, but was enough to get him to stop like he was about to go over a cliff. "You're poison, Larry. It doesn't matter where you go or who you're with… You're just not safe. You're hazardous to even be in the same room as."

He breathed deeply, feeling the words cut deeper every time. She deserved to get this all out, to say what she needed to say, not matter how much the truth stung him. "Even if I thought you'd stay away this time, that you're not just gonna come back in a couple of months and try this all over again; I'm not the only one, am I? You already brought your next victim with you, you… You brought her to my fucking house."

"Ruby has nothing to do with this." Jaune failed to bite his tongue, his voice instinctively pleading with Pyrrha not to bring someone else into his crimes. Ruby didn't deserve to be associated with what he'd failed to be.

"She shouldn't. A nice girl like that? God, it made me die inside a little to know how sweet she was only to remember that she was with you." Jaune finally turned to look at Pyrrha once more, unable to discern her unstable tone. Before him, Pyrrha had spread out her pose more, hands reaching out and grasping as if she were wielding something in them. Her eyes were tightly shut, making her expression hard to decipher. "I don't want to imagine whatever you did to reel her in, how you manipulated her to see you like some hurt puppy dog; but she deserves so much better. She deserves not to be ruined by you."

She was the walking embodiment of tension in mind, body and spirit, the very air around her seeming to wince as her voice grew. She found her strength, marching forward towards Jaune. He raised his hand up as some sort of personal barrier, only for her hand to shoot out and snatch his wrist in a vice-like grip. "But that's just what you do, Larry. You lie, you break, you push, you pull and you burn. I thought all I had to do was forget you, but that's not how it works. As long as you're still here, you'll keep on coming back, you'll keep on ruining people; my family can never be repaired, not until you're gone."

Fresh pain flooded his arm, making him shamelessly cry out for mercy and try to jump back, only to find Pyrrha, as well as her grip, was unmoving and unbreakable. In that moment, Jaune was reminded that he had no aura. It was also in that moment that it became abundantly clear that Pyrrha very much retained her aura and overall strength from the simulation, his wrist bending with such pressure that he was sure Pyrrha was about to snap it off entirely.

She yanked him close, her form seeming so much bigger when her eyes, rife with murderous intent, filled his entire vision. It was only when his own eyes widened and the reality of what she had in store set in for Jaune that she let go of his wrist, allowing her to free up her dominant hand to form a fist and crash him across the jaw. Jaune's world dissolved into red boarders and the sound of bones cracking as his body crumbled like paper, sent flying across the length of the hallway under the force of that one punch. He didn't have time to think, time to feel the pain of his jaw practically shattering, not before he crashed into the floor, hard enough to displace the floor plates.

He tried to struggle to his feet, feeling his jaw hanging limp, tasting the blood streaming from his mouth and watching his tooth skid across the floor. He couldn't scream, any words or noises overwhelmed by the fresh fear drowning his mind – fear of her, and fear of further breaking his jaw if he opened his mouth any wider.

It was difficult to focus, but squeezing his eyes shut, counting in his head and screaming at himself to move his ass managed to keep him together for the moment. Just enough to jump up, slamming against a locker while he was at it but at least he was up, and pushing himself forward. Can't think. Can't ask questions. I just need to escape. Escape. Oh god, this really is hell.

"Larry…" He didn't know how Pyrrha manged to come off as so loud and yet so soft. "You're never going to hurt anyone ever again."

---

"Larry, wasn't it?" Jacques spoke the name like one would clear their throat of flem, threatening to spit it out and stain the lush carpet with bile. He tilted his head back, sadistic amusement replaced with drowsy apathy. "Not much of a memorable fellow, was he? Such cruel, cowardly, self-serving nature makes him easily blend in with the rest of the undesirable masses I hire from Respite's underbelly. Oh, how I despise such lowly creatures, I don't know how anyone could stand him."

A finger that was one inch too long stretched out, the bones underneath bulging under the thin skin as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. Ruby couldn't find much reason to interrupt him, any defence would mean nothing – and as much as she wanted to protect her boyfriend, there wasn't much room to defend 'Larry's actions, as Jaune kept her well informed; Larry was a repugnant bastard who only served to show how much Jaune had to atone for. If he could atone at all. All she could do was glower at Jacques, prompting him to continue musing. "Mhm, that's right, I supposed you wouldn't know, would you? You never met him until the day you all plugged in."

As much as she dreaded what the man had to say, she had to appreciate that he did seem intent on clearing everything up. For good or for ill, he was going to talk her ear off with every detail he could hit her with. If she managed to escape this encounter alive, it could be useful information and… Well, she couldn't deny that she desired immensely to fill in the gaps in her identity, to know exactly who and what she used to be.

"Though I can't deny his chemical expertise. His involvement only grew to being more than Torchwick's errand boy because my dear daughter valued his product, 'Tranquil' I've heard it been called, she had quite a lot of 'edges' she needed to soften you understand." The name was self-explanatory, even for some as inexperienced with the topic of illicit materials as Ruby, a drug that calmed the nerves and such. She found her eyes widening, which Jacques made sure to let her know he noticed, at the new information. Jaune's role in this was doubling as the liaison between Torchwick and the Schnees and feeding Wither's vice, which explained why Wither would choose him to help in her double-cross plans, but why would he betray Jacques?

It wasn't too long before the man was speaking over her thoughts, voice light with overly dramatized concern. "I've never approved of such proclivities, but as long as it didn't interfere with our work, as well as her 'donations' strengthening Torchwick's support, I didn't need to step in." His tone, mimicking that of a concerned parent scared that their child had fallen in with the wrong crowd, would have been comical if it had been coming from anyone else. "Of course, that meant that when it came to her undermining me, our little bloodsucker threw his loyalty behind the woman who got him hitched to a Mistral Athlete way out of his league."

His shoulders came up as he shook his head, delightfully proud of himself for his obvious deductions. "No surprise that relationship rotted so fast. Parasites like him are all about chasing that high by any means necessary, constantly fearing the arrival of clarity, trying to fill that empty space in their heart; all he ever could do was drain her until he saw another woman who could give him his fix." The way his gazes rounded on her and his torso leaned forward just as he emphasized that ending sentiment, it hammered the insult, the dismissal of her straight through her heart. Even while her heart reasoned that she was different, that there was no reason such a comment should resonate with her, that she knew better; her mind simply noted that Larry's 'other fixes' would have probably thought the same thing. "The fix is short lived, it always is, but he knows that the woman he left at home will always be waiting for him, so it doesn't matter how long the effect lasts or who gets hurt."

It was difficult to remember that there were two men sitting next to her, silent as a grave and easy to mistake as simply two walls of meat and suits; she only noticed them once more when she realized that her body was too cramped to shake with the irritation that surged through her. "Ah yes, I understand you've become quite sweet on the boy. You were always so desperate for affection, weren't you, Audry? Drove you to such… Extreme distress." Jacques placed his hand over his mouth, gasping to himself at his 'unintentional' insinuation. With mocking sympathy, he reached out for her, only for his fake frown to explode back into a grin when Ruby mustered enough energy to slap away his hand. "My condolences."

"I really don't think you're in any position to be offended by other people's lack of moral character." She tried to match his polite distain, hissing her discontent through a soft whisper.

"Oh, it's never been about morals, my dear. It's about having standards." He held the hand Ruby struck up, waving it back-and-forth, tutting her. "Without standards every plan would fall apart because we'd just keep turning on each other. Larry was just a bum with a mixer, he was good at what he did, but there's no efficiency to a creature with no sense of priority or dignity." He drew his hands together, back to his chest, linking his fingers as he contemplated. "Kuriyuri, he had standards. Even if those standards meant he was a traitor's loyal attack dog." He sighed "Wither… Well, honestly, she was such a disappointment. She wore the Schnee name so well only to throw any sense of class or grace out the window."

"The problem with her type is that they want to enjoy the selfish offerings of the position they abuse, but also want to still call themselves the hero. They make their self-righteous pleas, they say they feel guilty, but they'll gladly keep all the rewards their exploitation earned them."

---

The hallways never seemed to end. No matter how many corners Jaune turned, no matter how much the map in his mind told him he should be somewhere else by this point, the number of lockers wrapping around the walls like small cages never ceased. Every door was locked, every new stretch of tiled floor pattern was devoid of life, every window out of reach, every light powered down to an abysmal dimness; and everything was absolutely spotless.

It was morbid to admit, but the cleanliness was an important factor here. It kept him from completely giving up hope, because as long as his blood wasn't on the path ahead, it meant he wasn't going in circles. The thought still triggered a painful twinge in his jaw, the jaw he had one hand crushing into place at all times, less he risk finding out whether or not it was knocked enough out of place to simply break off completely. He could feel the memory of Pyrrha's punch echoing throughout his body – fractured bone fragments dug into his muscle tissue, his skin screamed as it peeled apart and his gums swelled up into aching lumps, desperately searching for the tooth that had been violently ripped from it's flesh socket by the sheer force of the impact.

This isn't happening. This can't be happening! Even thinking felt like pressure pushing his broken jaw apart, his tongue flapping useless and limp against the roof of his mouth. How long can I even keep this up? She's a fucking athlete, I'm a back-alley bum. His stomach heaved, his lungs burned, his face was practically melting, and his legs hadn't needed to run like this in decades; but there was no slowing down for him. There was no where to hide, no point where he'd ever feel safe resting because, as the halls never seemed to change, neither did his attacker's proximity to him.

He could hear her. By god, his heart pounded in his ear, every alarm bell in his head screamed themselves hoarse at him, but he could still hear her. Her steps were slow and heavy, slow as if she were simply strolling after him – and yet still keeping pace with him – and heavy as in he could hear the floor plates shattering under such immense stress with every step she took. Even if Jaune thought Larry's more average physique had any edge over Pyrrha, even if she were stripped of her aura, he knew quite definitively that there was no defending himself against her. He'd only caught a glance into her eyes as her true feelings were finally unleashed before he was grounded, but it was enough, that potent, unbridled spite birthed from possibly years of repression was a power in of itself.

Pyrrha had made up her mind, Jaune was dying tonight, and nothing was standing in her way.

"Do you know how long I've thought about this?" The acoustics of the thin walls bouncing her voice again and again, coupled with the almost breathless delivery, brought her words like a violent wind sweeping through the halls. "So many times, you'd just leave me so… So… So angry. First it would be at you, but it always ended up being directed at me." Metal screams followed the loud gasp of her hand ripping through the air, a locker hitting the floor with an inconsequential thump. "I'd keep asking myself why. I'd keep thinking about how easy it would be to just shut you out for good. And then I tell myself that I can't think such things, that I was being terrible, that I was being shameful. 'It doesn't matter what he does, a good wife shouldn't think about killing her husband' the little doormat in me would say."

Another crash. This one sounded closer, louder, more personal than the last hit. It scared Jaune good, ripping his focus in two, having him tripping over his own foot in no time. His heavy body made for a good, blunt crack of an impact when his shoulder fell against the wall. It saved him from taking a fall he might have been otherwise unable to recover from in time, but it hurt like hell, felt as if Pyrrha's hand itself was gripping his shoulder, squeezing the new wound without mercy.

"Oh, how many years you were allowed to live, to keep on ruining lives, all because I convinced myself it was wrong to hate you." Her march came to a sudden pause, her breath drawn out with a bittersweet realization. He could hear her tear up. "I hate you. Yes… Yes… I do, I hate you. Oh god, to finally be able to say it."

He didn't have time to think about it. He didn't have time to acknowledge just what he'd done to this woman. His mind was distracted by the pain and his body was dead set on survival, so the only part of this he could consider is that she was pausing, that he had time. Immediately, he scrambled over to the nearest locker, thanking the brothers the lockers were all just big enough to house even someone as tall as him.

Gripping the edge of the locker door was akin to holding a bomb in his hand, both needed to be handled with care and precision, because one wrong move and it was over. It was a slow and arduous motion, pulling the door open. He couldn't risk it creaking, couldn't risk letting Pyrrha suspect what to look for when she eventually reached him. Every second that ticked by was another second for Pyrrha to shake herself free from the distraction of her own euphoria and round the corner, and see him, and grab him and snap his neck like a toothpick.

A sharp, high-pitched whine stabbed into his ears. For a moment, he thought it was all over, his head darting to the side, expecting to see or hear Pyrrha react to the sound. Only, it wasn't the door creaking, he quickly realized, it was his own quiet wheezing. He didn't get the opportunity to scold himself for scaring himself as the locker door stood wide open before him.

Getting inside the locker, sucking in his gut and bending down to stuff himself inside the small confines, was a even slower process. There was no going back now, if Pyrrha was even a second closer there would be no escape. The most difficult part was pushing back that fear, stopping it from triggering any temptations for sudden movements that would make for his funeral alert. No wait, the most difficult part was keeping his mouth shut, his jaw only breaking apart even more under his squeezing, doing all it could to coax out a pain cry from his throat. Actually, the most difficult part was stopping his heart from exploding.

No wait-

The locker shut with only the slightest of metal taps, leaving Jaune in complete darkness. For once, the darkness was a comfort, letting him know he could breathe, if only for a second. I did it? Holy crap, I did it. Now I can… I can… He almost destroyed his entire cover to swear. What am I gonna do now? I have no plan.

Time was meaningless in this state. It was just him floating in an empty void, pressure wrapping around him like a snake and crushing his body. He couldn't hear his heart, couldn't even hear his own thoughts, the only sound was of the coming threat that would either pass him by or lunge for his jugular. Her footsteps bounced between different extremes, one side the powerful and loud strides he could imagine breaking his body in two, the other a distant pattering of toes tapping along. One foot wrapped in a cinder block while the other squeezed into tiny socks.

The sound gave no indication of where Pyrrha was in relation to him, she was both far away and right next to him. He knew her position solely based upon his gut instinct, he could simply feel her presence, how it radiated the malevolent fury of a broken woman on the warpath for the bastard who wronged her so. It filled the air, a thick tension you could choke on if you weren't careful. So, when Pyrrha broke free of her own lack of focus and resumed her pursuit, he knew when she'd turned the corner and looked upon his row of hiding places. He knew she stopped in her tracks. He knew that she wasn't fooled.

"I had my whole life ahead of me once. Seems like another lifetime, really." Her voice didn't sound as if it came from her, from a person, it was distorted, too clearly received. It was like listening to something through earphones, as if it were his own thoughts tinged by an impression of Pyrrha rather than something said in person. "Was gonna be a huntress, endured all four years of Beacon, jumped from sports events to fighting tournaments just to build up my reputation."

Tightening his posture, trying to make himself smaller (as if it would make his hiding spot any better), it made the blood more prominent. His head was forcefully tilted down, treating him to the best view of the bright liquid streaming down his shoulder. The stains had favoured his right side, it's what he led with, the once white fabric now heavy with a putrid and dirty hue. When stumbling to flee, he had been too distracted to note how the damp clumps felt clinging to his body, a body that had already accumulated to the feeling before he had a chance to acknowledge it.

But now, with a simple shift of his shoulders, the stream changed direction, the blood gushing from his jawline splattering against his left side, the slight and sudden weight now striking him with a fresh shiver as his body was yet again reminded of the rips in its skin. He'd never realized how sensitive his flesh had become; so used to having aura to numb the pain and clear up even the worst of wounds that every cut felt raw, felt fatal.

"The professors, my friends, my family; they all told me that I was set up for great things, that there was no way I could steer wrong after all the work I put into it." The closer Pyrrha got, the tighter the world felt, as if the confines of his metal cage shrinking, threatening to squeeze him into paste as he struggled against it. "I wonder what was more disappointing for them; me throwing it all away, or me justifying it."

It was the sound of squealing metal bending under immense pressure that tipped Jaune off, that the sensation of gradual claustrophobia wasn't entirely in his head. The locker was getting smaller. The metal twisted, folding in on itself until the walls became jagged ends stabbing into his arms, tearing through his shirt and piercing his skin. Pain flooded his mind once more, but this time it was the pain that provided the clarity he needed to think. His eyes widened as the realization hit him, the locker wasn't merely shrinking; it was being crushed. And the locker door had suddenly decided it wasn't opening any time soon.

Pure survival instincts took over, ears deafening to the gushing wounds screaming in defiance as he planted his feet on the bottom of the locker door, barely enough room to stretch his legs outwards more than a couple of degrees. He needed more leg room and, if he remembered enough physics lessons well enough, the metal at his back would become weaker, more 'flexible' (for a lack of a more accurate word) in response to the entire structure being under enough stress to bend. With his barely lodged feet as his only brace, he pressed his back firm against the locker's rear wall and focused all his energy on unfurling his legs, maximizing punishment and praying to whatever brother still gave a damn that the metal would yield to him.

He remembered someone telling him once that, for whatever reason, it was easier to break something on the inside than on the outside; and damn was he hoping that had some scientific basis because, today, that was his personal religion. The worst part was spreading out his arms, trying to add any leverage he could find to widen his boundaries by repeatedly slamming his elbows back, ready for that next blow to be the one that seals it. This came at a cost, none of his movements doing away with the jagged ends formed by twisted metal jutting out either side of him and directly digging into his arms. Now, these make-shift knives weren't only poking him, they were slashing him open from his forearms to his elbow. Every blow he killed himself a little more.

At this point, it was unmatched power of pure delusion and denial that allowed Jaune to push back any thoughts that made the obvious observation. That being that he had no aura to heal himself, that he had more holes in him than any man could survive, that, even if he did escape Pyrrha's wrath, there was no one close enough to help him before he bled himself dry. The only real choice he had here was of his coffin. But again, he gritted his teeth, shook his head and pushed; pushed against the metal, pushed against reality, pushed against lingering guilt that told him how much he deserved this.

His body cried out for survival, and it drowned out every other thought in his mind.

He could hear everything now, the hiss of metal edges scuffing up marble floor tiles flooded his ears, alerting him to the muddled orchestra of movement he could hear around him. It was the kind of sound that gave you a headache, but in this moment, Jaune was thankful as the white noise masked his struggles for freedom. It was probably why Pyrrha had yet to clock exactly which locker he was in. On the downside, it was only when the confines of his locker, just as he felt the pleasant sensation of the wall giving in to his attempts to mould it, began to shake that he realized what the noises were; the lockers were all being pulled towards an epicentre.

Impending doom had a habit of kicking the need to act into overdrive, Jaune using his newfound space to spread his limbs out, making him the one solid object pushed into the back of the locker. From here, he pulled his leg back, pressing it tight against his chest, holding it there, building up pressure like he was pulling back a bow string.

BANG! His foot shot out, kicking at the locker door.

BANG! Again, this time he managed to dent it.

BANG! The dent deepened and he could swear he saw the screws on the door shake. He could feel the locker tipping forward.

BANG! No visible progress, but he was starting to feel the impact on his foot.

BANG! The material curled slightly, letting a thin beam of light to stream through.

One last devastating kick knocked the door clear off its hinges, his leg relieved to stretch to it's full length through the new opening. He didn't have much time to enjoy it as he immediately found the momentum of his kick taking hold of him, his body tumbling out of the locker and crashing into the floor. Managing to tear his face away from the ground, Jaune rolled onto his side, just catching the tail end of the chaos rocking the halls of the academy. What seemed like an endless army of lockers retreated down the hallways like a dispersing sea of metal, pipes burst free of the walls and followed suit, the lights crashed down, raining sparks and dust upon him. At the end of the hallway, which he swore was 3x wider than he remembered, the metal seat parted at the hands of its mistress, her form but a blur and yet Jaune could see Pyrrha's narrowed eyes and drained complexion so clearly in his mind.

---

Jacques had taken to wringing his hands together, rubbing so harshly that Ruby could hear the friction nipping at her ears, as if he were intently trying to rid his gloves of a stain. Whether it was to simply get him to stop making the irritating noise, or she wanted to push back now that his frustration was leaking in, Ruby found the words to continue onwards. "So, you knew Wither was going to betray you, you knew she had the codes, but didn't just capture us the moment we woke up?"

He paused, like Pyrrha had before, like he had short-circuited, stuck staring into the back of his hand. And then he was moving once more, yanking a sole finger into the air while his head hung low. "I had suspicions." With a grunt, he brought the finger downward, bending it towards Ruby as his whole body tilted, offering a clear view of his grin. "By the time you confirmed them, the codes' status was delicate."

Ruby had no trouble catching the important implication there, though her mind had to repeat it back to herself a couple of times between disbelieving blinks before she accepted it. "I… Confirmed them?"

His upper body shot up in tune with his laughter, as if there was a sudden burst of energy that lasted entirely for that one movement before coming to a dead stop. "Of course, you didn't think you worked for Wither, did you?" Pressing his palm against his chin, he perfectly framed his prideful smile between his outstretched thumb and forefinger. "You were such a good rat, yes you were. She was always had her sights set too high to even think about looking at what the grounders at her feet were doing."

Ruby found her mouth bone dry. Sure, she always knew she was involved in some fashion, but somehow, the idea that it was at Jacques' personal request made the prospect even worse. It couldn't make sense, there had to be a way it didn't make sense. Fighting back any desperation from leaking into her voice, she called out to him. "I don't understand, your own flesh-and-blood betrayed you and you risked your big important prize on trusting me? Was I that special?"

Again, that condescending, soft 'tsk, tsk, tsk' slapped her in the face with its dismissive nature, Jacques' head swaying with every syllable. "You weren't special at all. That's the key." The plush material of his suit was like a second, gawdy skin, his every movement sending a ripple of wrinkles throughout the attire, making her imagine a snake preparing to shed. "Do you trust fire to burn? Do you trust plants to grow in whatever way they require to reach the sun? Do you trust the moon to disappear when the day dawns?" He spoke slow and deliberate, spoke with purpose, as if what he was saying was the most important thing he'd ever uttered, a preacher handing down the good word blessed by a higher truth. Or a charlatan who thought mighty highly of himself. "No, trust is personal, it's a leap of faith with some logical foundation, it's sentimentality within bounds between individuals. I trusted nothing. All I did was understand that it was not in your nature to betray me: a spineless, desperate, depraved little creature like yourself who will undertake any burden to be told she matters."

"I hired my men. I made deals with Torchwick. I laid out ambitions for my family. You? You were dedicated to me, and had just enough competence to support that dedication." Every time he spoke, the polite mask slipped off, as if he needed to push it aside every now and then to breathe. The glee, the smugness, the pride; it was all fake, even if Ruby could barely believe it. There was no joy underneath it all, he couldn't allow it, there was only spite. There was something personal as he gazed upon her that threatened to burst at the seams and split him apart, a distinct disgust that rose at the very notion that he must acknowledge her existence. Jacque Schnee absolutely despised her, so much so that he only barely had room to take joy in making her squirm, and Ruby got the sense that not even he fully understood why.

He shook his martini glass, leaning it towards her. "In fact, it was you who suggested we use the simulations as a ploy."

She couldn't move from her spot, she couldn't bring herself to challenge him any more than asking basic questions and she couldn't steel her heart to the terrible overtones of the truth. It was as if everything was closing in on Ruby on every level, from the physical to the emotional. Her assumptions, all of her attempts at helping, had been soundly dismantled. She was never any asset to Wither, there was no plan and she had never gotten her hands on the codes, she was just a corporate stooge. She didn't even do what she did for money or anything, from how it was framed, she did it just to get patted on the head like a dog, eager to help ruin whatever she needed to.

The worst part was that she already knew this would only be the beginning.

She couldn't stop her voice from shaking this time. "But… But… You could have just captured everyone? Interrogated them?"

"Yes, that was the obvious course of action." He shrugged, setting the drink back down. "However, while I could not 'trust' my daughter, I knew her enough to give such an action pause." He tipped the glass back, letting a small ice cube slide into his palm. He preoccupied himself with this act, pushing his palms together until Ruby heard something crack, then pulled his hands apart, each now holding a piece of the broken cube. "Dived we may be, she still has my wretched heart. She would have contingencies, she would have no faith in anyone else to hold the prize and, in the event of failure, she would be all too willing to die telling everyone else they'll never find it. Neither the killer nor the thug would know where the codes were kept, and interrogation would possibly kill my daughter before she parted with their whereabouts."

Ruby felt the mounting answers dawn on her in the form of her stomach curling. If Wither was their only lead, and they were confident getting Wither to talk would be fruitless at best and risky at worst, then they were at a dead end. That is, unless something could change Wither's mental state, create some vulnerabilities to exploit. "…The simulation causes temporary amnesia." She found herself clasping her chin tightly as her mind throbbed with the possibilities, thinking back to how lost and desperate the group had become quickly after realizing their situation, trying to find any scrap of information or memory to guide them back. Something that could have easily been exploitable to the right people. "You were gonna wait for us to retrace our steps, banking on Wither finding where she hid the codes before she remembered why she was hiding them."

The sarcastic, quick paced clapping from Jacques made Ruby's ears hurt. Then again, at this point she was starting to think that nothing in this car could do anything but offend her senses. "See, that brain of yours does catch up eventually." He ended his gesture by pushing his hands, glistening with the remains of the ice cube, through his hair, slicking it back and giving Ruby an undignified view that made it look all the faker.

"We laid on the pressure, put Wither on the run and you made an impassioned, inspiring, cunning speech that convinced them that a dream vacation was their salvation. Their instabilities, doubts and hidden shames made it so perfectly easy for you to sell the solution." Even with all her might, Ruby couldn't stop her face from succumbing to gravity, falling into depraved shock at his words. Out of all the revelations and confirmations that this devil of a man had brought to her, after constantly remarking on how utterly unimpressive in every area she was, what struck her was that the one piece of praise she got was familiar territory. Everyone kept telling her that her impassioned words and sentiments, even in the worst of times, were her greatest strength. And it turned out to be true, only now that strength, that gift, had been sullied. Audry stirred up the hearts of others, not to inspire them to be better or to hold on, but to manipulate them, to prey upon their shames and fears, to use them for her own ends.

The only thing she could actually do in this world, and she used it to ruin lives, to prop herself up.

Jacques moved on without even a pause to acknowledge the flood of inner conflict written on Ruby's face, giving her no time to breathe, to think, only enough time to let the worst thoughts get their say. "The amnesia, the shock, the dissociation; it would all leave Wither perfectly vulnerable. Without her bite or dedication, I wouldn't have to worry about any sudden moves, and she'd be easier to probe if it came to it."

At this point, Ruby wasn't quite sure why she continued to ask questions. Talking didn't distract her, it didn't bring her any comfort, she just kept talking like she it was a programmed function. "Then why have Torchwick and Mercury chasing false leads? Just to make it look real?"

He rolled his head back to prop it on his right shoulder, slowly stroking his mustache with a wistful expression. He was contemplative. Perhaps that was what tempted Ruby to continue pressing, the questions didn't seem to be the one he was looking for her to ask, they gave him pause, if even for a second, they required him to think about his answer. He had an air-tight script to work off in his head and wasn't prepared for Ruby to pop a hole in it. It didn't mean much, of course, but it was something to alleviate the pressure. "Well, while you were sure Wither had found the codes, I was never able to determine absolutely that she did myself, so it didn't hurt to still chase other leads in the meantime."

His form seemed to sink into the seat as he readjusted himself, laying his back against the window and throwing a leg over the other, silently bragging about the space he was gifted compared to her cramped seat. "Knowing my daughter, I expected her to have left a paper trail behind, something to lead her back to the codes and her mission in the event of memory loss." With a click of his fingers, the space around them lit up with the bright lights of screens that materialized from the darkness, screens displaying a vast array of familiar footage. One watching the gang trying to find their way to Blake's limo, one hanging overhead their every diner conversation, one peering down at Blake's sleeping form slumped over her desk, one just across the street from Jaune as he was tackled by his son, one centred outside of Gramps' shop; everywhere they'd been, everything they'd done, captured in a crisp resolution.

One piece of footage in particular made Ruby freeze, a vile, wretched feeling overtaking her, like unwanted fingers grabbing at her, ripping away at her skin. This screen displayed a scene that was very fresh in her mind, dated just last night in fact, multiple cameras in her and Jaune's apartment, watching their private emotional conversation and subsequent activities from every perverse angle. Nothing was private, nothing was sacred, everything was exposed, everything was exploited. "So, we would watch your every move, wait for your memories to slowly come back enough to lead us to our prize, and in the worst case we'd go with the original plan."

Not all of the footage was pre-recorded, Ruby quickly realised, multiple shots featuring a blinking 'live' icon. Blake squeezed herself inside a cramped tunnel with Adam as armed thugs broke down her door. Ren stood in-between a bloodthirsty Mercury and Nora. Jaune… Well, Ruby couldn't see him so much as she could see the trail of blood that splattered whatever dark interior he had ducked into, only his eyes, burning with fear and panic, could be spotted through the darkness. She had a front row seat to confirm that her friends would be far too busy to have any hope of even noticing her absence, let alone coming to rescue her. And there was nothing she could about it.

She ripped her gaze away from the horrid scenes unfolding before her eyes, returning to the grinning devil in front of her who silently watched the anguish flood from her eyes. She could close her eyes, blind her nerves with pain, rip out her ears, but she'[d still know he was there, she'd still feel his stare, there was no escape from his eyes intently drawing in every dose of suffering he could collect from her. Her mind raced, desperate for some sort of relief, a chink in his armour she could exploit, something, anything she could consider a win. "And then you realized you were wrong." Her brain threw out before she could truly understand what her objection was, taking a moment of spluttering to tell herself that there had to be a reason that Jacques was finally going after them after watching them all this time. His plan must have failed, he must have ran out of options, he must be as desperate as her. "Wither didn't leave anything behind, and our memories never came back; you can't even interrogate us now. You lost the codes!"

She wanted it to be a victory, even if small, something she could use to comfort herself with the thought that this wasn't the utter defeat it looked to be, but her words did nothing to shake him. He simply nodded, his sigh more lazy than hurt. "Yes, not everything has gone as planned." His fingers traced over the sharp edged of his jaw, pulling his face back together and softly yawning. "Ah, but I am nothing if not patient. Setbacks are just an unfortunate delay in any plan." He stopped, as if a sudden thought struck him raw, prompting him to shuffle to the edge of his seat, looking her with an almost sympathetic gaze. "Don't worry, I know you did your best, I don't blame you for this outcome. There was only so much I can expect from someone like you."

He'd been slowly dragging it out of her this entire trip, the one question he wanted to hear her ask herself. The glaring question she should have started with but wasn't ready to accept the answer to; and she still wasn't ready to accept it. Her eyes darted to the windows, to the barely visible blurs that made up the outside world, wondering if it would be better to try and make a dash to the doors and throw herself to oblivion. Her dreams briefly considered lunging forward, thinking how much time she could manage to choke him with his own tie before his goons could peel her off of him if she really tried.

But there was nowhere else for her to go, no escaping the inevitable, all she could do was get it started. "…Who am I? What am I to you?" She didn't give him the satisfaction of looking at him when she said it, no matter how pathetic it made her look, her voice trembling as she dropped her gaze to her lap. "Just tell me already, I know you're itching to!"

He didn't speak right away, very precise with how much he could draw out her pain before she became unresponsive. She heard him shift around her, his deep strong breathes barely able to hide his eagerness as his presence grew. The sounds were louder, closer to her. "In any operations there are many roles, all vital in securing victory." She only realized how much closer he was when his finger caught her chin, forcing her to turn her head upwards, to fill her gaze with only his malevolent eyes as he towered over her and took up whatever space she had left. "You have the one that devises the method, the one that supplies the resources and the one that carries out the tasks." His grip was anything but soft, unravelling her skin, sharp talon-like nails piercing her, twisted imprints assumed to be his bones shifting underneath his flesh. "But I believe that the most important role in any good operation is the one that lets it all happen."

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her forehead, a kiss not of passion or desire, but poison, but spite, but message so vile it burned the very skin it touched. A predator sinking its teeth into a prey that had been firmly trapped, a prey that was finally ready to accept it's fate. It was then that the car stopped.

"Ah, we've arrived."

---

Jaune had never considered Pyrrha's semblance. He'd only ever witnessed it once when it was used to tear Penny apart in a fashion that would have been a gore-fest if not for the victim being an android herself. She never brought attention to it, whether out of personal grievances with disclosing it or liking the edge of keeping it a surprise, and her powers were the farthest thing from Jaune's mind when it came to that dreadful day. It was only years after the fact, during a conversation with Ironwood looking back on that battle that Jaune was even privy to the actual details of Pyrrha's semblance due to an offhand remark from the General. Somehow this being the manner in which he finally considered it, when he had to face it down himself, made it terrifying all the more.

When Jaune tried to push himself back up, his was met with what felt like fire engulfing his arm. No matter how he tried to twist his body, pain shot up from his hand to his shoulder, shredding his nerves up from the inside. He couldn't peer down far enough to see where the damage was, only the puddle forming around his forearm, so he tried to flex his fingers, see if he could feel a tug from the source of it. He couldn't feel his thumb move, however, he only got a quarter of the way bending the tip of his index finger before the pain struck at him twice as hard. Whatever the wound, it was in the palm of his hand, unravelling his hand, pulling it apart.

His other arm, resting atop the side of his body that faced upwards, faired much better though still suffered from obvious gashes from the locker's spiked interior. He threw this arm across his chest, pathetically pawing at the ground, his strength leaving him by the second, and barely able to get him to sit up. Pressure was good for a wound, kept things from spilling out, pressed the nerve endings around the damaged area to numb. Alleviating the wound of that pressure, Jaune found as he let the wounded arm slip out from resting under his body, felt like he was ripping something out of the wound.

Honestly, looking down at his hand from his new vantage point, only made it worse. Before, the pain was bad, but manageable, the horror or fear of whatever the wound was couldn't set in while he was ignorant. Now, now he could see the extent of the damage, he could see what he lost. He didn't know when it happened, maybe during his banging against the sharpened walls or when Pyrrha yanked all the lockers back, but the answer wouldn't change how much the burning sensation in his hand increased when he laid eyes upon the strip of jagged metal that impaled it. Around the wound, his flesh swelled with yellow disgust, desperately trying to close the wound but blocked by the weapon that caused it.

Though that didn't compare to what happened to his thumb. He could see why it failed to flex but a few seconds before, it had been sliced clean off.

He didn't know if he screamed, didn't know if he even could anymore, he just felt his jaw dropping and hot air escaping as the image of his disfigured, bloody hand burned into his mind and dismissed the distraction of the world around him. The stump where bone fragments poked out of flesh chunks didn't sting him, it didn't burn him; it was simply missing. The thoughts flickered once more, peaking over the wall of delusion to remind him that he was going to die here. There was no escape, there was no healing, there was no redemption. There was only the pain and how long he decided to draw it out.

His gaze dared to rip itself away from the wound, on some level hoping it would lessen the impact if he could no longer see the damage, and settled on Pyrrha's distant figure. She looked more haggard by this point despite being untouched throughout this entire encounter. Her hair had dropped into a messy, limp clump, covering her eyes in shadow and making her flesh stretch tightly around her muscles. In this lighting, she looked far more like a Grimm than she did a woman, the white highlights of her clothes becoming the typical bone plating, the darker colours tight enough to be mistaken for skin.

His agony gave her pause, halting her pursuit to play audience to the butchering of his body, silently appraising his suffering. He had to wonder what flashed through her mind in that moment, what sort of feelings the sight before her evoked. Was there pity? Was there hesitation? He knew, ultimately, that Pyrrha was not a sadist, all that she inflicted upon him was forged from the scars he left upon her heart and, despite how pathetic he looked, fear of him. On some level, she was probably as disturbed by her actions as he was, but on another level, she could convince herself that this was justice. He wasn't exactly going to argue.

"One day, I was a top of the class graduate. The next, I looked in the mirror and... I had no idea what I was looking at." Her voice cuts through him, sounding more confident, more determined than she looked; it also came without her opening her mouth. He didn't do anything to respond, didn't have the time nor the capability, instead busying himself with trying to pull himself to his feet with just one hand. Another sharp reminder of his complete lack of aura, nothing to protect him, nothing to heal him; he had no idea how to deal with the metal shard and panic became as easy as breathing. Should he take it out? It's what makes the wound, it's what makes it hurt like hell, so taking it out must be the obvious solution. But wasn't it sort of acting like a plug for bleeding? Taking it out would make things worse, right? Memories of first aid lessons and medical shows that felt like decades ago struggled to answer him, cursing him for being so stagnant, for relying so much on aura and his old semblance to make that hurdle unnecessary.

Maybe she got impatient, or maybe she just wanted to make sure he was still paying attention, either way Pyrrha made his decision for him. It started with a small sting, a tugging sensation around the site of the wound. It was irritating, but easy to miss. The clearer indication came with a second pull, this one a more forceful yank, not on his hand, but on the metal shard. He realized in good time what was going on, but he already knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. He could only sit there, watching as the forceful pull yanked his arm forward, twisting the metal with no remorse, forcing apart the confines of its flesh cage. It didn't slip out of his hand clean; it was ripped out of his hand bloody, tearing off more chunks of skin and muscle tissue along the base as the shard was pulled out of him.

Jaune was sure he screamed this time. He felt swear after swear bark from his lips like vomit, no dignity left to stop himself from wrenching blood-soaked saliva. His body curled up, barely able to stabilize itself under the screams. It was the type of pain that split your head in two, flooded your senses until you couldn't think. All Jaune could do was form a fist and squeeze, pressure the wound until the pain was fast-tracked to it's peak, until it overcame all other senses, beating his fist into the floor, overloading everything until his nerves had no choice but to reboot themselves.

By the time he could focus again, all he could see before him was more metal boxes twisted into spears, the sea of material sharpened and rising up to be ammunition under Pyrrha's magnetic pull. "My muscles had softened; my eyes had dulled, and time infested my skin with wrinkles." Her hand was outstretched, the chunk she'd just ripped out of him hovering just above her palm. She watched his blood drip from its fine point with great interest, as if it were something she'd been waiting a lifetime to see for herself. Then, the metal dropped into her palm, and, without a second thought, she crushed it, allowed it to pierce her skin, allowed her blood to mix in with Jaune's and the stream down her fingers. "My future was gone. You stole it from me."

And he'd do anything to give that future back to her, but he couldn't. There was no going back, there was no fixing it. At this point, as his body worked on it's own to stand up, pushing off his feet to throw himself down to corridor, he had to ask himself why he was even running anymore. He couldn't escape. He didn't deserve to escape. So why did he run? Deep down, was this all that there was of him? A coward fleeing the inevitable consequences of his actions, letting everyone but him take the blows? All that talk, and he had nothing to back it up.

His body and mind seemed to separate, as far as he was concerned, he was pushed firmly into the spectator's seat of his own bodily functions. It was as if his spirit was peaking out of his body, resigned to let his instincts drive him to whatever end was waiting for him, giving up on questioning it or rationalizing it. What happens, happens.

The first spear missed him, he didn't realize it was coming at him until he saw it demolish the wall in front of him. The second spear grazed his back, cloth torn, and skin ripped apart in a clear line, as if a whip lashed out at him. The third came too early, embedding itself just a few inches in front of him, too far to hit him, but close enough that he had no time to manuver around it. The top half of his foot found itself hooked under the spear with no power to move it, sending him stumbling over the obstacle and slamming face first into the corner he was attempting to duck behind.

It was the fourth spear that hit fast and true. It came for him just as he thought he'd recovered from his fall, trying to shuffle past the corner, his vision blurred and his movements unstable with his arm too damaged to brace against and head too dulled to think. Simply the agony of his bones splitting apart as the weapon skewered his leg and shredded whatever resistance he had left would have been enough to knock him off his feet, but the sheer power behind Pyrrha's semblance-enhanced throw made it so the make-shift javelin didn't stop there. Continuing on it's set course with no force powerful enough to drag it down, the javelin pulled Jaune along with it, 'snaring' him by the leg.

He wasn't airborne long, at least not long enough for his body to catch up with the inertia of the bloody act. The numbness was starting to set in. For a time, his surroundings were a blur of greys and blues through a sickly filter of the ugliest red, his thoughts were still frozen on the split-second before he turned to run, his ears could only hear the whistling of the air disturbance his sailing body caused, and his heart couldn't make up its mind on what tempo to beat. In a way, that interlude – that state of mindlessness where all he could bother himself to acknowledge was that he was moving – was a reliving distraction despite how short lived it was.

It came to an end in spectacular and visceral end, as if the world had noticed his undeserved respite and worked to smack him down in the most sudden and disrespectful manner it could. The spear dislodged itself from his leg, leaving him to crash into the steps. He could hear something crack. The momentum still held strong, bouncing him off the step as if he were made of rubber before he plummeted into the next one. He could hear something break. Each step repeated this process, the airtime decreasing and yet the impact delivering the same shock to his system. He could hear something snap.

Jaune could feel himself falling apart as he lay in the darkness. He didn't know what was keeping him together, what could possibly keep him together. His jaw hung loose, his hand had been ripped open and lost a thumb, his arms were shredded, and his leg had been impaled. The mere fact that he was still able to open his eyes was an afront to all that was fair and logical in the world. Or, perhaps, this was the universe's fairness, keeping him together, keeping him alive, just lost enough to face his punishment in all its splendour.

He knew where he was. The familiar bronze flesh of the walls, infested with rashes of rust and rotted by age, beckoned him from his sleep, beckoned him to his end. They pulsated, slow and withdrawn, as if the very walls of the boiler room were alive and breathing, their breath carrying the stench of all the blood he'd spilled within it. There was no getting to his feet this time, his body simply didn't have it in him to summon that sort of strength. All he could do was reach forward with the hand that was the least damaged, drag himself towards the end of the familiar hall, the rough grooves of the rusted metal floor digging into his flesh with every pull; and keeping him awake.

Soon enough, the flesh blood was substituted for dried blood stained across the bronze cavern, not a single drop touched or disturbed. The same could be said of the rest of the interrogation room from the tables, to the fallen chairs, to Torchwick's collection of instruments; if it wasn't for the dried blood Jaune could have believed not a second had passed since he was last here, since he was last looking at the body.

I'm sorry…

It doesn't matter.

Cardin looked different from this perspective. When he murdered Cardin, he stood above the body, looking down with the shelter of a dim light that shrouded most of the details. In his head, he pictured the visual damage to be minimal, the killing blow did most of it's work on the inside, not the outside. Now, Jaune was up close and personal, down on the same level as the corpse, the spotlight now wide enough to leave no detail spared.

I didn't mean to…

It doesn't matter.

The head was squashed, one side flowing inwards, like the flesh was stuck in a ripple of motion. Bone fragments poked their way through, little rips and tears connecting the forehead to the indentation, the entry point where the blood spewed out. If Jaune's punch had been any more direct, he might have actually gone through Cardin's head. Jaune never had the strength to do what was right, to protect or to help; but he had all the strength he needed when it came time to murder another.

It has to matter...

It doesn't matter.

What stuck out to Jaune was Cardin's face. Aside from the squished corners, the face was intact and locked into Cardin's final expression. Even with the blank veil of death removing all intent, Jaune couldn't help but see the fresh fire still burning in the dead man's gaze. Cardin's teeth had been gritted, his eyes narrowed and his lips stretching far; he died defiant, looking his executioner in the face and welcoming them to do their worst. He died a good man, a man who deserved so much better than this.

But then what else can I do?

You know what you need to do.

Cardin was dead. There was no bringing him back, there was no bringing him peace, there was no atonement. It wasn't even 'Larry' who killed Cardin, Jaune tried his hardest to reject who he used to be and yet immediately succumbed to murder the moment things got tough. He'd convinced himself of a greater change, that this time he'd rise above the bastard he'd always been, but as Pyrrha told him, he was good at saying he could change. He always fumbled at actually following through.

As tears streamed down his face, the pain suddenly seemed to dull, clarity dawning on his broken heart as the conflict disappeared. Pyrrha was right, there was no fixing him, he'd simply keep bring his grief to everyone he met. It didn't matter how many shallow platitudes he'd make; he wouldn't change, nothing would change. Even in the simulation, even in reality with new 'friends', all he did was focus on himself really. He threw out Ruby like she was garbage, lashed out at Ren even though he was agreeing with Ren's point not two seconds before and did nothing to help Blake; all because he was so focused on his own problems that he treated every other problem like they didn't matter. All he would do was ensure that better people than him continue to suffer while he weasels his way into their undeserved good graces. The only right path was to accept his fate and stop running.

"Sorry doesn't mean anything." He didn't move to acknowledge Pyrrha's presence, she was the most natural thing in this room. Instead, he lumbered himself over to Cardin's corpse, his acceptance drowning out the pain and all the questions standing in his way, allowing him to place a hand on the corpse's head. He only hoped Cardin was allowed the mercy of watching this all unfold, getting to see that justice did find his killer eventually. "Nothing you do means anything. There's no apologizing, there's no making up, there's no second, third, fourth chance. There's nothing you can do; only what I can do to you."

He managed to hold himself together as the cold steel of her final, decisive javelin rested on his shoulder, pressing against his cheek. He didn't move, neither to resist nor to look at her. If she wanted him to see her before she took that final step, he'd leave that up to her. This was her moment, her justice, she more than anyone deserved to decide how this went. "You're a deadbeat. You're a thug. You're a murderer. You're a coward." Listing out how vile and pathetic a creature he was, her voice just couldn't find the spite he deserved, it was still haggard by the last remnants of affection. Even now, Jaune had found a way to scar her, to deny her. "You're a monster, there is no redemption for people like you."

"You're right…" It hurt like hell to speak, every syllable like a spike stabbing into his joints, but she wanted him to speak, to admit to his crimes. "You're right. I deserve this, don't I?" The javelin tapped him on the shoulder twice, he complied with the silent wish, shuffling around on shattered knees to look upon Pyrrha one last time. "You deserve to do this." He gave a solemn nod, refusing to stain this moment with a smile, even a sad and resolute one. "And Jaune deserves a good life without me in it."

Pyrrha had never looked as at peace, as radiant as she did under the light of the spotlight, the tip of her spear gleaming as she readied it before her.

For the first time since entering this reality, the pressure had shifted, his senses rested, and he was filled with peace that not even his night with Ruby could compare to. The tears kept coming, so much regret for all he brought into this world, so much he couldn't take back. "I wish I could have been better."

"You can be better in the next life."

Nothing stood in the way of her spear as it slammed into him, as it buried it's point in his chest, as it pierced his heart. His voice is too dead to scream, his lungs overflow with blood and the world slowly fades into the dark abyss. He doesn't resist the tides of shadows, he doesn't fight for air, he lets the grim sea swallow him whole and drag him under, drag him so deep he'll never escape again.

Ruby… Ren… Blake… I know you'll be better off without me.

Death could be such a peaceful thing.

---

"I hope it's not too cold for you, my dear." He didn't have to look down at her, Jacques could feel her shivering as she clung to his arm. She couldn't stand on her own, all energy, all resistance knocked out of her, leaving an unstable, barely conscious woman hanging from him. He made for an untrustworthy and feeble ledge to cling to, but he was the only one left for a pitiful creature such as her. He knew this all too well, despite them now being in a wide-open area, free of seatbelts and barriers, his aides remaining in the limo, there was no escape for her. She had neither the means nor the will, her shackles now all but self-made.

They stood at the foot of a great stone staircase stretching far out of the city limits, stretching towards a tiny island dotted with stone slabs and broken statues, all wrapped in a sickly fog that made it feel like nothing existed outside it's boundaries. It was the only natural formation Ruby had seen since arriving here, an island of dirt and grass, though all life seemed very much drained from the nature, all colours muted or dissolved under the thick haze of rainfall. She didn't question how the rain was there. She simply didn't care anymore, she just let Jacques drag her forward, slowly ascending the steps and past the sign welcoming them to this dreary place.

To be fair, there was rarely ever a happy occasion when entering a graveyard.

The scenery embodied the death buried under it's surface. Rocky strips of land rose from the crystal water below them, twisting and moulding around the foundations of the island and the shoreline like rotting tendrils. Earthly, jagged claws digging into the world and letting rivers of discomposed remains drip from the open wounds like blood. Jacques looked upon the display like it was the most beautiful piece of art he'd ever seen. It was the first time his softer appreciation seemed genuine. "You'll find a lot of old friends end up here eventually, have my own personal plot just to dedicate to them" He indicated further up the island where a small spire watched over them, surrounded by statues of different Grimm bowing before it. "We're not that far from where you used to work, you know."

He stopped himself mid-step, pulling her aside with ease and propping her up against the railing. Nothing stopped her eyes from following his finger as he raised it to point towards the horizon. Not much was visible beyond the fog, a few buildings poking their roofs overhead, and some vague specks of light fighting to get through the fog; at best, she could just make out the corner of a large, abandoned industrial build poking out over a set of docks. "Just over there, behind the garage, there was once a club. An old location of ours, off the books of course." He braced his foot atop the railing, his gaze brimming with pride at all he saw before him. All the work he'd had a hand in.

"It was a convenient site for certain operations, the bellows of the building being a prime spot to store contraband and enemies together." For a moment, Ruby could only think of people like professor Port or Ooblec in the throes of their lectures, the way they glowed with enthusiasm as they detailed what they knew or what they had been a part of, regaling their audience with the tales they held dear to their hearts. That's how Jacques saw his accomplishments built upon blood and suffering, with every wistful sigh, excited gesturing of his arms, with how he almost seemed to forget Ruby was there. His spite could take a backseat for once, just once, so he could revel in the work he was born to do.

"The problem was loose lips and weak stomachs." He broke off from his enthusiastic gazing, swinging his sight directly to Ruby as he slipped off the railing. "See, many are willing to allow all sorts of depraved, but necessary, acts to take place behind closed doors. As long as they never have to peek behind those doors. Even with the scum of the criminal underworld, there's a certain squeamishness when it comes to certain acts and certain groups."

He pushed on forward and, wordlessly, Ruby reached for his arm again, following him diligently to the end. There was no sense fighting it anymore, is that it? Just give him what he wants, just let him finish and leave her to whatever fate he felt was befitting of her. Was this all that remained of Ruby Rose's will to live?

Their feet hit dirt soon enough, the once distant slabs of stone now fully visible as gravestones littering the uneven ground, looming over them, peering up at them and staring across at them; all eyes, even of the dead, followed Ruby's steps. "It put us in a difficult position. We couldn't keep our front door staff completely ignorant; the right hand needs to know what the left is up to in order to function without tripping the other up, but we couldn't trust them not to get cold feet and rat us out." He steered Ruby up the jagged trail of rocks that almost resembled a path, the spire's shape more defined as it stretched out over her vision, became her horizon. "And I wanted to limit making use of Torchwick's thugs as much as I could." Jacques added as he rubbed his forehead, as if to dull the pain of an annoying headache. "What I needed was the perfect person to look over our 'transactions'."

He chuckled, his laughter always scratchy, robotic and unnatural. "What I needed was someone who was ready to do nothing." She didn't realize Jacques had fallen behind her at first, the way in front of her so undefined and blurred in her rain soaked, disorientated vision. Her eyes began to linger on a spot, just past the base of the spire, just past the statues, where something seemed to draw her closer. It was when she attempted to take her first step under her own power that his bony fingers dug into her shoulders like daggers, pulling her close against his twisted frame and humming into her ear. "Someone unassuming, someone nobody would ever dream of having such skeletons in her closet, someone you'd never think twice about even if she was pointed out to you, someone who only cared about what concerned her."

One hand withdrew it's nails, dropping down her front so her could hook her by her neck with his arm, hugging her in the worst manner possible. "You were an absolute star in looking the other way, Dear." He let one finger press against her cheek, the tip of his finely manicured claw trailing down her flesh. "Whether it be a suspicious package, someone bearing a striking resemblance to a missing person or a girl having disagreements with her 'boyfriends'." With every check on her list of accomplishments, his nail seemed to push just one inch deeper, bundling all that tension under one simple spot and readying itself to puncture her, to let her shame just flood out through her blood.

But the final stab never came. Not yet. No, Jacques pulled his talons away, pushing her forward, his eager energy making every movement just a little more jittery. He would give her everything, his permission for release, only when he was finished with her and not a damn second before.

There was no hurry now that they'd reached the spire, Jacques pausing in front of the Grimm statues with an earnest reverence. He fondly dragged his hand across the back of a stone beowolf, as if he were stroking it, trying to comfort it in it's horrid state. For once, it was as if Ruby wasn't there, his destination forgotten, his tension kept at bay, as all focus befell the Grimm as he rested his forehead on the statue. "Such beautiful children…" She heard him whisper to the statue, a soft 'shh shh shh' slipping from his lips one would reserve for a child they were trying to calm down.

It made him look even more furious when her loud breathing cut through the rainfall and forced him to acknowledge her once more. He could barely bring himself to look at her, the only indication she had of his shifting gaze was the slight wobble of his head and the way his mustache, the white shining bright through the night, bristled upon the sight of her. With a grumble and one last nod towards the statues like a regretful goodbye, he brought her further in, past the spire, closer to the spot that made her heart shrink.

It was quite the dark spot. The spire loomed over them, and the fake moonlight struck at it's back, leaving stripes of shadows over the outcrop of bushes and upturned mud. Before her, from what Ruby could make out, were three gravestones, the poor lighting and small writing making it hard to read any of the details. Standing behind them was another Grimm statue, this one closely resembling the dragon that had laid waste to Beacon back in the simulation, the one that had been sleeping beneath Mount Glenn. The bulk of it's body disappeared under the foliage, leaving it's head, resting on a pedestal, to sit in the centre of Ruby's view, directly over the middle gravestone, staring down at her through eyes that almost seemed judgemental.

Suddenly, she felt his wretched fingers once more, this time grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling it back. Before she could question this action, the sound of an umbrella unfurling hit her ears, a dark shape overtaking her blurry vision and protecting her from the rainfall. He was holding her hair, pulling out of her eyes; making sure she didn't miss what was in front of her.

She pulled her arm up, wiping over her face with the dry patch of her sleeves, her body so cold and wet at this point that the extra moisture didn't even make her shiver anymore. In her heart, she already knew where this was all going. There were very few reasons for why Jacques would want to show her gravestones, and she was pretty sure it wasn't because he needed help robbing a grave. No, of course, the names would mean something to her, they would deliver the final blow.

Rest In Peace

Ruby Rose

Beloved daughter. A true hero.

Oh, that name did mean plenty to her. Though it wasn't the shock to her system that she expected it to be, calming herself with the knowledge that she already knew this, Torchwick himself had implied the name she took was from one of his victims. Of course, that didn't stop her heart from tensing in fear, that didn't stop Jacques from talking.

"Oh yes, her. You loved her." She felt her entire body flinch in response to the emotional blow, not even allowed a second to delude herself that there wasn't more to throw in her face. "You were obsessed with her." Once again, he was in her ear, hissing. "Needed her." His arm pushed over her shoulder, now holding a polaroid loose between his fingers, one showing the spitting image of the Ruby Rose she knew and had always thought she was. "You told me she saved your life once, from Torchwick no less; such a warm story." It was a strange feeling, looking upon an image of person who you thought was you in situations you knew you never experienced. Ruby saw her reflection, or perhaps it was better to say the original, framed beside Audry. 'Ruby' looked clearly uncomfortable as Audry's arm wrapped around her shoulder and squeezed her into frame. "She was everything you wanted to be."

"That's why you had me take her." The picture was carelessly dropped into the mud, sinking into the grave of it's owner before being replaced by another. This one was harder to make out, much more grainy, much blurrier, the camerawoman obviously having moved too much while taking it; but the important part was clear. Ruby laid still on a warehouse floor, possibly unconscious or possibly dead, her hands bound, her clothes ripped, and multiple bruises focused on the side of her head. "And since she was the first of Robyn Hill's ilk to start making a dent in my operation, I was all too happy to help my darling underling."

She didn't know whether she dropped to her knees willingly, or if Jacques had shoved her down into the mud, all she could focus on in that moment was looking to the other two graves flanking Ruby's. There was nothing to confirm, really, her heart, threatening to explode as the tempo increased and the shock sunk in, already knew what she'd find.

Rest In Peace

Yang Xiao Long

Beloved daughter. The life of the party.

Rest In Peace

Tai Xiao Long

Beloved father. He never lost hope.

Yang was never here. Tai was never here. Ruby was never here. Audry made sure of that.

"Oh, but of course little red's sister came looking for her. And then her father." As shamelessly as the first, he cast the picture into the grave like it was trash. Without warning, Jacques' foot pushed her head down, grinding her face into the dirt of her own grave, his voice gaining volume and yet still feeling like a venomous whisper in her ear. "You took her hair, you took her cloak, you took her name and her face; but all they saw was a wolf." When his foot retreated, she could hear him walk around her, his voice growing hoarse and booming. She didn't dare raise her head, she couldn't, she just couldn't bare any more of this. Even as she felt him pelt her with what she assumed to be more pictures, she didn't move, didn't even shake, she just wanted this to be over. She'd had enough. Why couldn't that be enough? "And so, I accommodated you then too, told you that in return you'd get to be one of my most pivotal pieces in my latest operation."

She couldn't feel the rain as it bore down on her without mercy. She couldn't feel the mud as it sunk into her skin. She couldn't feel the air clamping down on her lungs. She could only feel disgust. Disgust at herself, disgust at what she'd done, disgust at what she preached, the bile rising in her throat and threatening to become projectile vomit was the only sensation that felt right. No matter how much it rubbed her insides raw.

She wasn't a failure, she wasn't a mistake, she was scum; some worthless gunk you scraped off the sole of your shoes and never think about again. Her involvement was pathetic and her reason for her simulated story even more so. With the others, she could see some charitable reasoning, that their stories reflected hidden guilt or a desire to help the people they'd hurt; but not for her. No, no, no. Ruby Rose wasn't born out of a desire to be a better person, she didn't create her amazing sister Yang out of some sort of second chance, there was no attempt to give Tai the closure he probably never got in reality; it was all selfish obsessions. All of it.

Every moment she shared with them, from Yang teaching her to ride a bike, to surprising her dad with breakfast in bed, to giving them 'homemade' birthday presents built from things she found in the trash; they weren't warm anymore. Everything that made those memories, even when she found out they were fake, so precious, it was all sullied, perverted. She took somebody else's family, sat down with them wearing their loved one as a skin suit and played some pathetic make-believe fantasy with them because what? She was sad? She was lonely? She was fucked. She was absolutely fucked. She was useless, worthless and pathetic.

She wanted to curl up into a ball, she wanted it to stop, but he just grabbed her, yanked her back up, still not done with her.

"It's like you were made for me, Audry." His pace was quick now, the two bounding past the graves, kicking aside any rocks and bushes that stood in their path. At the very least, his eagerness seemed to indicate that this might finally be reaching the climax of her torment. "That's why it pained me so much to watch this charade unfold." His voice continued it's decent as they continued onward, his words now backed by what sound like stoned being gargled in the back of his throat. She couldn't struggle, couldn't keep up with him, her body just went limp, letting him drag her around like the corpse she felt like. "Here you were off galivanting with your friends, cursing my very name and spitting out audacious platitudes about heroism and hope and moving forward as if you had never done anything of the sort, acting so above the moral cesspool in which spawned you." The mask was completely shattered by this point, nothing hiding the pure hatred that dripped from his mouth like spit with every word. When he came to a stop, Ruby was still moving as he yanked her around him, pulling her up to level with the shallow slits that made up his eyes, pure distain now raining down upon her. "I know your memory was missing, but I couldn't help but feel hurt by it all. I gave you so much, and now you're as dead to me and you were to everyone else."

It was only at this point, when trying to look away from his eyes that she noticed where she'd been taken, and more importantly, where she'd been positioned. They had reached the end of the island now, an old lookout easily converted into a makeshift cliff as the broken railings proved a perfect spot for Jacques to corner her by. He wasn't holding her over anything, technically, he was merely so close – with a physical presence that made Ruby naturally back away, wanting to be anywhere but near him – that she quickly found herself running out of room and leaning over the edge. The only thing that stopped her from plunging off the cliff and into the glowing abyss below was her grip on his arm.

She found her voice cracked, shaken and on the brink of tears, but she still managed to speak. "Why did you bring me here?"

Was this it? Was this entire ploy just an elaborate and ego-stroking execution?

"Respect for who you once were, I suppose." Jacques shrugged, pulling his arm back, but not attempting to break her grip. If she fell, when she fell, it would be by her own hand. "You're of no further used to me, just a loose end in need of tying." He tilted his head back, looking to the heavens to announce his idea as looking at her had become quite sad. "But I thought that, before I execute you and leave you one of these wonderful dedications, I would ensure you knew of our great work."

A gloved hand reached upwards, grasping at something that wasn't there, before settling on her arm. "At the end of the day, I'm the only one who accepts you, Audry." He leaned closer, baring his teeth like fangs, making sure she didn't miss a single word. "No one else would care about you, your compatriots would turn on you the moment they find out what you truly are; the only thing you've ever done that has meant anything is your work for me."

He pulled away, gently tapping her hand one more time and fixing his drenched suit. He had said all he wanted to say, all he wanted to reveal, he was done with her. All that remained was for her to follow this path to the only conclusion that mattered, the only conclusion she had the power to make happen, to do the world, to do the real Ruby Rose a favour. "You can be worth so much more in the next life."

He simply said, "Just let go."

And so, she did.

---

And yet, part of her didn't, it seemed.

Ruby had expected the violent rush of water to claim her as her body smashed into the sea, washing over her and dragging her into death's cold embrace. She expected to feel her lungs collapse and her mind darken as liquid overflowed her insides with pressure. She expected to see the start of her body's transition into a bloated, pale mess that would be only home at the ocean floor.

She didn't expect to land on a warm bed.

The island, the water, Respite, Jacques; it was gone for now. It was a world away. Above her was now the dark spiral patterns of her dorm room's ceiling, the corner of her eye catching the windowpane opening to a vast view of absolutely nothing. There was just a black, empty void outside the room, leaving the sole source of light to be the glare of what she could only assume to be a tv positioned on the far side of the room, at the foot of her bed.

It was hard to move, every bone in her body groaned at the thought of getting up. Before she could move too far, a hand reached over to push a cloth, wet with warm water, over her forehead. She recognised that hand. "Don't you go doing anything stupid now, okay? We're supposed to be taking care of you." She recognised that light, teasing voice.

Of course, Ruby knew that this wasn't the real Yang. This wasn't her waking up in yet another new extra real reality. The void quite clearly demonstrated a certain amount of dream logic here. She recalled something Blake had talked to her about once, a subject matter the two couldn't decide whether it was disturbing or kind of sweet; the idea of a state just before your body finally succumbs to death. When those last few neurons are dying off, your consciousness' perception of time and reality shatters, trapping you in a millisecond long dream that would last for eternity in your view, where you have plenty of time to forget all notions of what death even was.

That must have been it, she was about to die, and this was her eternal dream. Suffice to say, it was rather disappointing. She'd have expected her dying mind to latch onto more company or at least a more exciting setting, not just bed bound with her fake sister watching over her.

"Go away." Ruby groaned; her voice as weak as child. "You're not supposed to be here, you're dead."

"I am?" Somehow, she could just hear Yang's lips pucker up to pout.

"I saw your gravestone."

"Oh well, that just settles it, doesn't it?" The bed rocked as Yang dropped onto its side, dabbing the cloth across Ruby's face. "I mean, I'm just the one who helped raise you, but I'm sure the block of stone is far more trustworthy. I swear, no respect for the big sis mantle anymore."

"Can you two keep it down?" Weiss' unmistakable refined edge cut through the air. "You're ruining the movie."

Yang clicked her tongue. "Come on, Weiss Cream; I'm trying to make Rubes feel better over here."

A scoff. God, did Ruby miss Weiss' over-the-top scoffs. "She doesn't need to feel better, she needs to pay attention."

"If she doesn't get better, she's gonna die." Yang said it so casually, as if she'd just remarked they were going to be late for something.

"She has enough 'feels'." Ruby could swear she heard the crunching of popcorn when Weiss paused, and to be honest, she felt a tad offended by that. "Her feelings won't do anything if she doesn't figure out what she can do with them. If she doesn't see the flaws in the design."

"Oh fine, you big stick-in-the-mud." Yang's arms, both noticeable flesh and undamaged, slipped under Ruby's torso, pulling the girl up to rest against the back wall in a sitting position. "Up we go."

Ruby almost, almost, found herself giggling when her mind's first priority was to confirm that Weiss was indeed munching on a fine bowl of salt-laden treats, the girl curled up on a separate bed. Wait, why shouldn't I giggle? Why should I care what she's eating? I'm dead. Well, about to be; nothing matters now. From her new vantage point, she had a much better view of the room, it really was their old Beacon dorm, though the bunk beds she'd painstakingly convinced the other girls to go along with were now strewn across the room as they were originally intended.

Their front door was missing, now just a hole in the wall where the TV was precariously hung from the ceiling. On the screen, Ruby could clearly see the movie unfolding with a very familiar scene, one of Jaune and Ren stifling their laughter as they set their eyes upon her work uniform for the first time. It felt so long ago now that she thought about it.

Yang leaned into view, half her body now hanging off the bed in a pose that didn't look comfortable at all. Both girls were clad in their usual pyjamas, though their colours had long since faded. They were almost running through a black-and-white filter, Ruby only barely able to distinguish between their colours from sheer memory of what they should have looked like. "So, what do you think of the movie so far?" Her eyes lingered on the scene through dulled lenses. Oh yeah, she thought, the movie was amazing. I especially loved getting the stuffing kicked outta me and finding out I'm a terrible person. Is this what people mean when they talk about your life flashing before your eyes?

Ruby didn't answer. Instead, Weiss grumbled her reply while throwing popcorn pieces at the screen. "Absolutely abysmal! It makes no sense."

Yang rolled her eyes. "I was asking Ruby."

"What's she going to say? She didn't notice anything!" There was a certain hoarseness to Weiss' voice, as if she'd been screaming for hours and was only now heard. "She has the observational skills of a lobotomy patient." Weiss' words, while harsh, didn't really hurt Ruby all too much. Maybe she just really missed Weiss criticizing her.

"You do know that if you could spot something, that means she spotted it too, right?" With the grace of a trained thief, Yang's body lunged across Ruby's body, swiped a handful of Weiss' popcorn and fell back into position in under two seconds.

"Your sub-conscious is always more aware than your primary consciousness." Already, Weiss' finger was extended for a lecture to come, completely oblivious to the blatant theft taking place in her peripheral vision. "Just because basic instincts catch onto to something being amiss doesn't mean the person themselves is aware of or are able to understand that feeling."

Yang body shook with withheld laughter as she held out her handful of ill-gotten goodies under Ruby's nose. Without much reason not to eat, Ruby snatched up a couple of golden nuggets and popped them in her mouth. "Don't mind her, she's the worst back-seat spectator." A lone finger moved to circle Yang's ear in a 'she's a bit loopy' gesture. "She's always hung up on the small details."

"Every big picture is made up of small details." Ruby could hear the second bed lurch as Weiss jumped up, her eyes now glaring daggers at Yang who made no effort to hide the stolen popcorn in her palm. Weiss' face looked as if it could burst right then and there, but instead she simply resolved to slip further up the bed and protectively hide her bowl under her arm. "I'm just saying that Ren was absolutely right, Ruby's workplace made absolutely no sense! There was no direction, rarely any customers, their product was inconsistent, and she never once met her other colleagues. She didn't even know what it was called for Brothers' sake." Her glare turned to Ruby that moment, making it feel like a spotlight had suddenly fallen upon her. "How did that not ring any alarm bells?"

It was funny when Ren got caught up on such small questions, but her own mental image of Weiss taking such a nonsense query so seriously just left Ruby uncomfortable. "Why… Why does that matter? Who the heck cares?"

"You care! That's why I care in the first place." Weiss spat out, exasperated, as if it were the most obvious truth in the world. "No wonder you were just nodding along this whole time." The tv screen now showed her meeting with Pyrrha, that moment where everything seemed to stop. Ruby remembered being distracted with thinking about how much trouble she'd had with trying to process the passing of time. Heh, she even got so distracted it looked like Pyrrha had become a statue or a tea cup teleported into her hand. "Though I suppose I can't blame you alone."

Now, Weiss' look returned to Yang, though it was no longer a glare, just a stare of soft disappointment. Noting the silent accusation, it was Yang's turn to grumble, stretching out her finger to point at Weiss. "Hey, I've been pulling my weight non-stop. I'm just more for the actually damning details. Not the tiny slip ups." Pulling back, she turned to gesture to the scene in question. "You know, like Pyrrha glitching out right in front of her. Now that's just plain unsettling, should have left her with a few questions."

Okay, Yang was subtly insulting her too. Great.

Another scoff, more offended than the last. "If you did you job right, she'd have asked them." Weiss pressed her hands together, holding them to her chest and tilting her head downwards to let her brows flutter in a deranged 'sweet' expression. "But noooo, the pretty boy batted his eyelashes at her, or the fake Schnee slightly raised her voice so everything has to take a back seat to some nauseating back-patting sessions." She even pushed her voice up a few octaves to emphasize the mocking nature. Wait, is she doing an impression of me?! That's just uncalled for!

"Okay, maybe we got a little distracted." Yang deflated a little, crossing her arms over her chest and sighing into her elbow. She let her body fall closer to Ruby, her body pushing Ruby aside just to make room for her. "But keeping her emotions in check and keeping everyone's spirits high was important! You saw how close she gets when she's brooding, if she didn't take time to process and steel her resolve, we probably wouldn't have had this chance to talk to her at all."

Ruby looked between them, only able to summarize what they were saying as odd, even for deathbed delusions. "What is happening right now?"

Weiss' signature look of indignation in the face of such obvious stupidity glowered down at her. "We're discussing the movie." The 'obviously' was a silent addition, but it hurt Ruby's ears all the same. Even in her own mind she was treated like an idiot who didn't know anything. "Like, did you notice how many people seemed to respond directly to your thoughts when you think they're contradicting themselves?"

Ruby started to paw at the cloth on her head. She didn't exactly expect her dying gasps to make sense, but she thought she wouldn't have enough brain cells left to know they didn't make sense. "Wait, huh?" She remembered Ren saying something about his conversation with Nora, but she just assumed that was a 'couples being on the same wavelength' sort of thing. Why would her brain think that was suspisous?

But Yang was already butting in, nodding along with Weiss. "Or that something just has to conveniently go wrong or interrupt you when you're getting too comfortable or start asking too many questions?"

Life's inconvenient, what else is new? "Hold on a second-"

Weiss bounced off her bed, the contents of her bowl showering down upon Ruby with no remorse. "Or how Respite doesn't exist in the simulation despite being a major city."

"Guys, please."

"How do Grimm like Nevermores and Beowolves even get into an underwater city anyway?"

"Can you-"

"Maybe they take the underwater train or whatever." Yang said offhandedly, before then suddenly clapping to herself with more and more energy. "Oooh, do Grimm have passports?"

"Can you just-"

Weiss shook her head. "Okay, now that's just a silly question."

"Shut up!" Ruby screamed, just barely avoiding a direct collision with both sides of the ridiculous mental debate as she managed to shoot up from the bed. She was so confused and so frustrated her body forgot the aches that were keeping her down. "What is wrong with you two? You're treating this like it's one big joke." Neither of the two dared to make a reply, merely making sheepish expressions as Ruby glowered down at them, her hands outstretched and trembling like she was ready to strangle one of them. "One of you is my imaginary best friend that my other real friend made up and the other is my imaginary sister based off the innocent woman I got killed." Her trembling fingers curled up tight, storing the pressure under her iron grip and fighting the urge to scream again. "Why… Just why is my dying breath spent seeing you like this? Do I just not feel guilty at all? Is this just a joke to me deep down?"

She knew she wanted to cry, she felt the liquid sadness building up in her eyes and begging to be released. And yet, she couldn't, no matter how much she tried, she could not will her tears to fall. She couldn't find even the most basic of peace in her death. Reality stripped her of everything she held close to her, everything that made her whole, everything she'd ever done that mattered; and now her delusions were mocking her for it. Perhaps this was what remained of her sense of justice or guilt, ensuring she spent the last moments of existence disturbed and ridiculed for what she'd done.

Perhaps that was why this fake Yang looked up at her so tenderly, so serious, so similar to how she remembered Yang; just to make it hurt all the more that this person wasn't real. "I am your sister, Rubes." All her previous joviality disappeared just to speak this one lie, almost made Ruby believe it too. Then her face cracked into a small smile, tinged with a bitter truth as she shrugged. "At least, I'm in the image of your sister."

"My sister isn't real!" Ruby felt her eyes squeeze together, begging for just one tear drop to accompany her empty sniffling, to empower her protests. "She's a desperate fantasy from some pathetic simulation." She threw her arms out, pointing at the TV screen, now frozen on the image of Audry, stained with mud, blood on her hands, Jacques in her ear and slumped before the gravestones of the people she helped damn for the mere crime of living better lives than her. "This is real life. And in real life, you're dead and buried. Because of me."

"Real life?" Yang spat it out like it was an irritation in her throat, an idea worthy of no respect or consideration. "Says who?"

Ruby shook with thunder and lightning as she cried out. "Says… Well… Everybody!"

Weiss didn't look impressed, holding up four fingers and counting them off as she spoke. "Everybody but you, Jaune, Blake and Ren." She was now sat next to Ruby, pressuring her like Yang did just by taking up space, giving her nowhere to run to. "Everybody who, as we've already mentioned, have been acting as suspiciously as possible. Oh yeah, they'd tell you the truth."

Her back came to the wall, stumbling into it as she tried to jump away from the two sides of whatever mental discontent was haunting her. She hated this. She hated the questions, she hated the friendly faces, she hated the fake memories; she hated this delusion. Because the more she listened, the more she let hope build that they might be right, that there was a way out of this. And that only made it hurt so much more to know there was nothing for her but the abyss. "Look, I don't know if this is some death bed denial to make me feel better, but-" She grabbed her head at either side, pulling down on her hair, hoping to arose some stinging sensation that would focus her mind and dispel these restless thoughts. "Jacques said-"

"Oh, come off it." Yang practically snarled at her, punching her fist into her own palm in leu of any actual target. "You've seen enough stranger danger PSAs to know you can't trust a guy with a moustache like that. Especially when he's laying it on that thick."

"I don't understand."

Weiss jabbed a painfully sharp finger into Ruby's leg, her expression tense, still agonizing over how she still had to explain what she considered a simple problem to Ruby. "You're the most worthless, nothing cardboard of a person to exist, and yet he comes down personally to demoralize you, explain his grand plan and push you to suicide?"

"This won't work on me." She turned her head away, as if physically looking at them would somehow deafen her to her own thoughts. "I know the truth."

Something about her voice was stronger than before, projecting a visceral boom that immediately drowned out their protests. Just like that, Weiss and Yang pulled away, their expressions faltering, their energy just gone. Weiss sighed. "Ah well, then there's not much we can do then, is there?"

The last time Ruby had seen such a crestfallen look on Yang's face, it had been when she first discovered what Adam had done to her during Beacon's fall. "If you want to take this all at face value, accept this… This reality as your own, then go ahead."

They rose in sync, joined hands and turned their backs on Ruby, making their way through the door where the TV was now absent. When they left the room, when Ruby could no longer hear their voices bouncing back and forth, when she was truly alone; the tears finally fell. She cried until her eyes were blood red, she cried until she was sure her body had no moisture left to articulate her sorrow, she cried until her tears filled the room, washing away the walls, drowning all that remained and taking her back to that dark place.

Below her laid the abyss, that ominous and dark space that called to her in her worst moments, calling for her to let go and accept her fate. It was so all consuming, so magnetic, she could feel it's pull whenever she gazed into it. It welcomed her fears, her shame, her pain; it welcomed all the misery she knew she could trust, that she knew would never change. All she had to do was not struggle and it would all be over, be right. All she had to do was accept that she was drowning.

Above her shined the surface of the water that would be her tomb. It was many different holes in the sky, light burning through them and moving back-and-forth with the indecisiveness of the waves. It didn't pull her or push her, it made no demands of her, it made no effort to force her hand or deliver her. It welcomed uncertainty, her joys, her values, her memories; it welcomed all that she held dear, the things that were finite and something could very well change on her. She'd have to struggle to reach it, and even if she got there, it could turn out to not be what she expected. It was a risk, and for what? For what?

"Come home to us, Ruby."

"We're all waiting for you."

"Don't count yourself out yet!"

"Fight for yourself, Rubes, you're worth saving!"

It could have been Weiss. It could have been Yang. Dad. Mom. Jaune. Blake. Nora. Ren. The Ace-Ops. Winter. Ironwood. Her teachers. Her other friends. It could have been so many people carrying that song of desire down to her, asking for her; everyone that made it worth the risk.

Well…

She was already dead; what did she have to lose?

Her legs lashed out at the water, kicking with more vigour than Audry Averg ever could, kicking like Ruby Rose would kick. The abyss reached for her, she could feel those cold, empty fingers grazing her feet, desperately clawing at her with doubt after doubt. But she kept swimming, hearing the soft chimes of recognisable voices in her ear, letting the thoughts of better days, days that were worth fighting for, lift her up.

She kept moving forward until she broke through the sky.

When she gasped for air, she instantly knew something was different. Respite was unchanged but looking up to it from the shore she'd washed up upon, it just didn't feel as towering or as ominous anymore. Suddenly, it had no power over her. It didn't keep her down any longer. She realized this especially when she got up, how easily she got up, the difference only dawning on her where she held her head high and stretched out her leg- Her leg. Her leg was fixed.

She ran her hands down her pale legs, pushing the folds of her combat skirt out of the way to get a better look at the area, expecting to see some sort of bruise or damage that miraculously knocked a bone back into place. Though, the first thing she noted was how this was so much more difficult with her stocking and her old boots in the way. Wait, when did she put those on? And, now that she thought about it, she didn't remember being able to reach her legs this easily, Audry had been a taller person.

Before she could find an answer, more questions piled on, her dark locks, longer and now tipped with a familiar red, dipped into her vision. She kept her heart in a stranglehold, not daring to let it free, to let it start hoping. Instead, she threw herself to the floor, scrambling over to the water, where the fake sunlight struck clear and true. She expected to find a reflection in the water, to see Audry's dull and ratty features stare back at her and cast a grim shadow overhead. Instead, she saw a woman, a much younger woman, one who was pale, who had messy dark hair that stuck out with crimson, wild spikes. This woman bore a metal rose symbol on her chest and was wrapped in a cloak of the brightest red.

And the most capturing part of the image was the woman's eyes. They were… They were…

"You have silver eyes." The voice hadn't been any of the voices she'd expected to interrupt her, but it caught her by the throat all the same. That voice, heavy with centuries of tragedy and regrets, yet spoke so softly with the warmth and wisdom of a man who faced those centuries with a gentle heart and a hopeful outlook.

It had been years since Ruby had looked upon Ozpin in the flesh, so long since she'd seen him as the headmaster of Beacon and not the ageless sorcerer of a long dead age, she thought she'd forgotten what he looked like. But when she turned around to follow his voice, there was no doubt in her mind to question his legitimacy. His face alone, framed by his half-lidded spectacles, brought her back to the day she met him in the interrogation room, where he told her that she could become so much more than she thought she could be.

He had no respect for the dead, it seemed, sitting himself atop an upturned gravestone, a cup of what smelled like hot chocolate balanced on his knees. This wasn't the man who ripped them into 'reality' so long or short ago, he lacked the dirty jumpsuit, the attitude and the accent. It was Ozpin, the headmaster, just as she remembered him.

Ruby felt herself shake even more, partly from the cold that crept over her drenched body, but mostly just from letting the tears continue to fall. Though, these tears were not weighed down from sorrow, they swept over her cheeks, burning the relief into her. The way Ozpin looked at her so softly, his eyes shimmering with a kind joy she'd never seen on him before. Well, let's just say that Ruby forgot how good it felt for someone to be so damn happy to see her.

"…Professor Ozpin?" She could barely contain her sniffling, pressing the palm of her hand against her nose as she crept closer.

He chuckled, raising his cup to gesture to the free seat next to him. The seat in this instance being another gravestone that was flattening a row of flowers, a familiar red device resting atop it. "Beacon is still undergoing repairs, Glynda has taken my position and you are quite a few years out of school, Ms Rose. I believe we are far past calling me 'professor' anymore."

Ruby snatched the device from its pedestal, unable to believe what she was looking at. Oh god, did it feel good to hold again, after so long, the smooth grooves she'd carved into it herself pressing into her palm. It was a weapon in its holstered form. Her weapon. "Oh yes, how rude of me." Ozpin continued, drawing Ruby's attention back to him as he gazed up at the fake sky with an unimpressed shake of his head. When he lowered his head to meet her gaze, he wore an eager smile, finally able to say something he'd been waiting oh so long to say. "Now, you must forgive the repetition, but…"

"Ruby Rose; let me be the first to welcome you back to reality." He glanced to the side, narrowing his eyes at the sign hanging over them proudly labelling the island as 'Respite Cemetery', to which he had to sigh. "Well, in a manner of speaking, of course. We still have to get you out of here first."

---

There we go, finally got that little bombshell over and done with. I knew these were gonna be big scenes when planning it out, but damn did I not think they were gonna run on this long. So yeah, this is all a fake world created by the Grimm they were fighting in the opening, and this has been one big rip off of an episode of the show 'Red Dwarf'. Honestly, I was surprised by how many people legit bought into Respite really being reality, thought I made it too broken, depressing and weird to be believable that there wasn't more going on than just a corperation trying to get security codes.

I know that, with this reveal, it could very well hurt the story since the fake story is what you've been engaging with for the most part. As much as I dveloped the conspiracy plot to tie scenes together, I tried to make the focus more on what it brought out of our main characters, their different reactions to what they think they've done and how it divides them. I wanted Respite counter-parts, while a fabrication, to not just be mounting every bad thing I could have the characters think they did on them, it's something that speaks to the darker parts of the characters themselves.

Like, Ruby could see herself, in her nightmares, being such a superfical person and devoid of any real worth/purpose that obsesses over living someone else's life. Ren could see himself being an emotionless robot who's only virtue is efficiency. Jaune could see himself as a worthless bum who coasts on the talent and generosity of better people without ever giving anythign in return. Blake... Yeah, Blake I think I dropped the ball on now that I think about it since her issues are more wrapped around being guilty and nostalgic about Adam rather than being an extension of what she fears she could be.

I hoped that, with the crimes of their alternate personas being firmly in the past tense, with them having no memories of their crimes and treating them almost like seperate people, that whether or not they really did it wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of thigns. That the focus would be in how they reacted to the knowledge, how quickly they believed it and how they proceeded to act. Making it so that, even though its not 'real', it's not something that can just be easily shaken off with that knowledge alone. Like, Jaune still murdered a guy fully believing this was all real, he didn't exactly carry himself in the best way when trying to deal with all this information, he never really doubted that he could have been Larry, and ended up being the first to succumb to his fate.

I really do hope this reveal didn't harm the story too much.

Now, onto the 'what changed' notes:

Originally, Ruby's meeting would be intercut with Blake and Ren's perspective too, but those ended up getting cut and saved for another chapter both because this chapter was getting long enough as it is, as well as worrying that four different perspectives would be more awkward. Some of you could probably even see where their scenes were supposed to segway, like with Jacques making his evaluation of Blake... Only to transition into another Jaune scene.

I kept Jaune's segment in this chapter because I wanted his scene to occur before the reveal potentially dampened the impact, and because I thought it worked well as a sharp contrast of Jaune succumbing to the Grimm and letting go while Ruby's subcounscious (Weiss and Yang basically being her heart and mind arguing with each other) just manages to help her hold on and break free.

First draft just had Pyrrha kicking the shit out of Jaune in the boiler room before killing him instead of having this whole slasher-esc chase sequence. I changed it because I felt having an actual tense sequence of Jaune taking more and more damage and working around not having aura was a more interesting vehicle for the emotional battle draining away at him until he accepts his fate, as well as feeling like the original draft was just a repeat of Torchwick beating Ruby.

Even bigger change was that, plan-wise, this beating would actually have been done by Mercury since I originally planned that Jaune would be there with Ren instead of going out with his son. Obiviously, Pyrrha works much better as the voice for Jaune's failures, has infinitely more of a connection to him than fucking Mercury and I have no idea how she wasn't the first character I thought of for that. Plus, it works better for the overall set up that they're all seperated at the moment.

Now, next chapter is gonna be a little bit of a diversion as we follow what happened in the real world after Ruby, Ren, Jaune and Blake got taken.