Darkness was all that surrounded Ruby as she laid on the cold floor. Though, she couldn't tell if it was really dark or just her swollen eye blocking her vision. Her entire body was drenched in blood and sweat with every bone and muscle either aching or sore. The armor plates of her suit were tattered and barely hung onto her frame. Not that it mattered. It was weighing her down anyway. Her shattered aura would be of no use anymore in her drained state. But while her body was against her, Ruby's mind kept telling her to get up.
Easy steps now. She first detached the heavily damaged pieces of her ruined suit. That left Ruby with only her boots and gauntlets. Next, she first used her arms as leverage to lift herself from the floor before using her legs to get her to straighten up. Every part of Ruby's body screamed for her to cease, but it didn't faze her. With the remainder of her strength, the vigilante pushed herself onto her feet and steadied herself to keep herself standing.
A bright light shined above to single her out from the darkness. The sound of slow clapping echoed along with metal boots pressing itself onto the concrete floor. Then she heard his calm, booming voice from the shadows.
"Impressive. You're still breathing."
Just hearing that voice forced Ruby into her combat stance. Arms raised and eyes focused, ready to attack anything that came at her. She tried to keep her breathing steady, but was only able to take large deep breaths to compensate for the broken ribs.
"Unfortunately, only because of a lack of trying."
A slash of pain erupted from Ruby's back as another sharp sting flared her sides. She screamed in agony as the wind got knocked out of her from a blow to the chest. The Girl Wonder tried her best to block or even parry the different slashes and hits, but it was only futile.
It took only one final kick to the chest to send her back onto the floor. Her lungs struggled to take in any air as the pain in her chest only grew stronger. The sound of heavy boots grew closer until it stopped before her. Ruby tried to crawl away, but a boot stomped itself onto her leg. An agonizing cry left the Girl Wonder before looking at her attacker.
There was no mistaking who he was. They'd fought far too many times for her to forget, and through his torments, he made sure she never did. Silver eyes met the cold calculating eye behind the half black half orange mask.
The man moved closer to her, ignoring the Girl Wonder's futile kicks to the shin, with his signature sword in hand.
"A true shame that things had to end this way."
He lifted his sword right above Ruby's chest before looking at the fear in her eyes.
"Goodbye Robin" he says before forcing the blade down.
Ruby thrusted herself forward as she awoke from another nightmare. A mix of sweat and tears incessantly beaded down her face as her lungs tried to gather as much air as possible.
It's been over a year since she last had any dreams relating to her failure with the Titans. An entire year since she and her old team were forced to disband because of that one-eyed bastard. Ruby had really tried her best to forgive herself and move on from her failure as the head of the team. Unfortunately, guilt outweighed any sort of sympathy, so she tried burying it into the back of her mind. Her recent position as team leader for Team RWBY probably didn't help in that matter.
Speaking of, the events at the initiation ceremony started to come back to her. Ruby sighed to herself before thinking how she was gonna explain that to her team. Best to cross that bridge when it gets there.
Observing her surroundings, Ruby, still in the combat uniform from the previous day, saw that she had been laying on a soft bed in one of the school's dorm rooms. The dorm itself was pitched in darkness, having only the shattered moon of the night sky illuminating enough for her to make things out.
Stacked in the corner of the room are various bags and luggages of, from her guess, her's and her teammates. On her left, there are a couple of occupied beds parallel from her own. Yang's golden maine, and loud snoring, was easy to spot from the farthest of the beds and Weiss' sleeping figure was easier with her being in the bed parallel to Ruby's, which leaves Blake in the bed in between the two.
So they brought me to bed after my attack. Gods, I wonder what they were thinking when I ran out the door. Knowing that she wasn't going back to bed, the Girl Wonder kicked herself off and headed for the bathroom.
With a quick face splash and change of clothes, Ruby readied herself for another workout to keep her mind busy in the meantime. In the middle of the room, and as quietly as she can, Ruby began her regular stretches and basic warm-ups for the next couple minutes. The academy gym would be the best place to work-off any remaining frustration.
It would've gone off without a hitch had Ruby not accidently knocked something off a nearby table top while reaching for her phone. Lucky that her reflexes were able to catch it before it reached the ground, but not without sound.
A quick glance at her still sleeping teammates helped suppress the girl's fear.
Not wanting to stay any longer, the Girl Wonder made her leave as quietly as she could before softly shutting the door. Unfortunately, had she been looking a lot closer, she would've noticed the bow of a certain teammate twitching at the various "sounds" made in the room.
Not a lot of time had passed since Ruby started beating the lights out of one of the gym's wooden post dummies.
More often than she would like to admit, these things were normally left with a few broken arms or legs whenever she was in a bad mood or just wanted to take her frustrations out of something.
However, having been far too long since she last trained like this, the only damage she was doing was to her palms and fingers, which only frustrated her even more.
We're unfit to be a team leader. Just look how we reacted when we were appointed!
That doesn't dictate how good our leadership skills are. We've led a team before. This should be no different.
It was because of us that our last team ended up disbanded!
It was Deathstroke who disbanded us!
Take some accountability and accept that-
A cough interrupted her train of thought. Turning around, there stood Blake still dressed in sleeping attire.
Seeing her had surprised Ruby. She was so sure she hadn't made too much of a ruckus. Besides, Yang's snoring would've covered any sound she made on accident. Unless…
Maybe…But not my place to comment on.
Nothing was said between the two as they maintained their stares. It lasted for a couple more seconds before Blake broke the ongoing silence.
"Wanna talk about yesterday?"
"No."
Blake looked unconvinced. "Talking about it would help."
Yes.
No.
"I…This isn't my first time leading a team," Ruby answered.
Wanting to know more, Blake relaxed herself onto a nearby dummy. "I'm all ears."
"A few years ago, I was in a sort of…working internship, to put it lightly," Half truths were better than flat out lying. "In that internship, I made a couple friends and we eventually formed a team. We thought ourselves to be the 'best-of-the-best', traveling about, helping people whenever we can. A force to be reckoned with."
"You sound proud to have led them," Blake pointed out. "What happened?"
Ruby hadn't realized a smirk was on her face until it fell. "I…We managed to get the attention of a very dangerous man. He…The decisions I made eventually caused the team to disband."
"So you've made bad calls. I don't believe that-"
"Those bad calls maimed a friend of mine and nearly got the rest of them killed."
Blake made no physical remark, but her silence was already telling.
"It's not easy moving on after everything I've done Blake. I hope you could understand that"
It was difficult to decipher what went through her head as only her widened and focused eyes showed emotion. Perhaps the twitch of her bow was a sign.
An awkward silence grew within the air. Both girls were unsure how to proceed after being exposed to such information. Ruby wanted the conversation to end, but knew Blake had more questions that needed answers.
Fortunately, it was at that moment when Ruby's scroll started to beep, signaling to them that it was already 6 am.
"Guess it's time to wake the others up," Ruby said. "Wouldn't want to be late for class, do we?"
Blake took the hint, but it didn't deter her from her curiosity. Questions for another time then. Giving a quick nod, she headed back to the dorm, leaving Ruby to her lonesome.
With a heavy sigh, the ex-vigilante knew that this was going to be a long day.
By the time the rest of team RWBY was awake and dressed, they had less than 20 minutes to get to class. Even though most of their necessities were out, fully unpacking would have to wait until after class.
As the team walked to their Grimm studies class, Ruby noticed that her partner seemed to be stiffer and more brash that morning.
Earlier, when she and Blake came back to the dorm room, they found a recently awoken Weiss. It looked like she tried waking up earlier than everyone else, but never took into account Ruby waking up way earlier alongside Blake.
Afterward, Weiss had taken way longer than everyone else to get ready. It didn't help the fact that Yang had also taken her sweet time to get ready. While the end result had them both being the most presentable of the bunch, it did cause them all to be delayed by an extra 10-20 minutes.
Now, she was practically pushing the team towards the classroom. Her excuses were the lines of "I do not want us being late to be our first impression" and "Our reputation will not be tarnished". Before she could ask her partner about her behavior, the team had already arrived at Grimm Studies class.
There wasn't much to the class itself. Rows of chairs and tables surrounded the center podium and desk where their teacher, Professor Port, stood. By his side were twin cages that held growling animals with red piercing eyes. Students who arrived earlier had already taken their seats, but some of those older-looking students had dreadful looks on their faces. That wasn't a good sign.
As team RWBY took their seats, their sister team, JNPR, burst through the doors, narrowly escaping tardiness on their first day. Professor Port looked neither surprised nor happy at their entrance. But that soon changed as his posture switched into one of confidence and his booming voice echoed through the classroom.
"Monsters, demons, prowlers of the night! Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names," Professor Port started, grabbing everyone's attention. "But I merely refer to them as prey!"
The teacher gazed at the audience for any other reactions, only for him to be greeted with blank expressions and neutral reactions.
After that awkward silence, Professor Port then began the normal introduction towards the subject itself and its importance in the huntress curriculum. However, soon enough, his introduction slowly drifted off into him retelling his own experiences with Grimm in a boastful manner.
"But first, a story. A tale of a young handsome man, me! When I was a boy…"
Ruby could only sigh at the professor's tangent from the main topic. If this was how this class was going to be, she might as well just research the subject herself in the library. Was the class supposed to dissect the teacher's stories for lessons?
Speaking of the class, the young leader glanced over to her own team and sister team to see if they had any interest.
For a majority, that wasn't the case; team JNPR looked uninterested as most of them were either bored or asleep alongside Yang. Blake was currently reading some novel that Ruby couldn't read from her position. It was only Weiss that looked to be remotely listening to the teacher's rambles, aggressively writing down notes in her notebook.
She must've noticed Ruby's stare because she had stopped her notetaking to face her.
The look she gave could've been mistaken for an icy glare. The kind one would give to someone of malice or spite. But Ruby knew her long enough to understand that look. It wasn't one out of anger or jealousy, but uncertainty.
While their staring contest continued, so did the teacher's lecture/personal tale, but only did the latter seem to be coming to a close.
"...A true Huntsman must be honorable!..."
Weiss stopped her writing, but her gaze narrowed.
"...A true Huntsman must be strategic!..."
She gripped her pen as it threatened to snap into two.
"...A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!"
For a split second, her eyes shifted towards Professor Port.
"...So, who among you believes to be the embodiment of these traits?"
The Girl Wonder's eyes widened at the realization. It didn't take much of a detective to figure out what Weiss was gonna do next. Before the heiress even got the chance to raise her arm half-way, Ruby instinctively raised her arm first.
"I would like to volunteer sir!"
Weiss was flabbergasted at Ruby's sudden actions.
Professor Port looked up in surprise, but smirked at the quick response.
"Very well then," His smirk grew wider under that mustache before gesturing towards one of the cages next to him. "Step forward to prove yourself."
Ruby then noticed now that the cages were becoming more restless as their growls grew louder. Perhaps she bit off more than she can chew.
Sorry for the long wait. I have re-edited almost the entire story (Omakes included) by fixing some errors, rewrote some scenes, and even adding more scenes to enhance aspects of the story. Volume 1 of the story is almost about to wrap up so I hope ya'll enjoy this in the mean time. I would like to thank you all for the support, please leave a review or a comment on the story, and I hope you enjoy.
I do not own any of the characters. All characters and names used are owned by either Rooster Teeth and Detective Comics (DC).