RWBY Puppet AU: Novel Version

Chapter 9: The Ruby I know and Love

A naked Ruby cried softly into her hands as she crouched in a dark void within her mind.

"Stop it." She whispered as she saw the memory etched into her brain. Her hands trembled as they still felt the sensation of slitting open Pyrrha's skin with those blades of Cinder. The blood splattering made her want to hurl, not that she could eat in this void. It would actually bring pleasure, a feeling Ruby was denied for weeks on end. All she could feel anymore now was pain.

"Make it stop." She pleaded louder. Soon the memory of her knocking out Jaune, her first friend at Beacon ruthlessly plagued her mind. She could hear the bones in his arms break, the sound making her want to rip her ears out.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" She screamed, the memory of blasting Nora's back and almost roasting her innards made her heart feel like it was going to burst. She couldn't stand this, hurting her friends was becoming too unbearable. Even worse, she was helpless to do anything about it as this witch defiled her body, transforming it into a killing machine. She already slaughtered an innocent nurse with these hands she slowly removed from her face, almost wanting to rip them off as they began to burn.

Ruby is soon shown in the void regressing into the form of her 6-year old self, weeping and grinding her teeth in frustration at her helplessness and forced cruelty. It brought a dark thought to the normally cheerful red head.

"I just want everything to end already." She groaned. She wanted to be put down like a rabid dog right now. That's all she felt like anymore, a mindless beast tormenting her friends and family. What right did she have to live if that was her fate for the remainder of her life?

She would soon find her answer in the form of a white haired maiden, crying profoundly as walked by her side and patted her now small back.

"Geez. You've been crying non-stop for the last 2 weeks you dunce. You used to be so lively and full of spirit too." An image of Weiss said sadly.

"W-Weiss?" Little Ruby asked confused.

"This is sad Ruby, why are you crying so much?" Weiss asked her as she knelt to her eye level. Little Ruby couldn't help but scoff a bit hearing what was for a ridiculous question.

"You should know why I'm crying Weiss." She said bitterly and the heiress nodded.

"Because your hurting-" Weiss began saying before a scream cut her off.

"BECAUSE I'M HURTING MY FRIENDS! HOW COULD I NOT CRY!?" Ruby yelled indignantly.

"Ruby…" Weiss said softly, almost hesitant to say anything in response to her friend's rage filled grief.

"JNPR, Yang…all of you were hurt by these hands. I even took a life with them. I just can't take it anymore." Ruby wept, scratching her hands as she did so, but recoiled as Weiss soon grabbed them firmly, not willing to let the child go as she struggled.

"Ruby, you need to realize something." Weiss said as she wiped the tears of little Ruby's eyes to her shock. "Your friends love you and want to protect you. Any damage you deal them means nothing to them as long as they save you and bring them home. Don't give up and disappear, that will be what kills them." Weiss said sadly yet firmly.

"R-Really?" Ruby pondered. Soon a hand reached out for her.

"We are hunters. Whether it's against you or Grimm we always risk our lives for what's right. I may be an illusion of your ideals and insecurities right now, but that's all the more reason to listen when I say this, Ruby you have to move past your suffering and fight beside your friends, they need you now more than ever to be strong!" Weiss said as she motioned for her to take her hand. Little Ruby slowly began to reach for it, feeling a warmth begin to ebb away the pain in her throbbing heart as she did so.

"I-I want too…No! I will fi-" Ruby began to say before hearing a shotgun blast go off. Suddenly the image of Blake with half her left ear shot off etched onto Ruby's vision to her horror.

"BLAKE!?" Ruby cried out, her child image reverting to her 16-year-old self with her huntress outfit on.

"*Sigh* So…now Blake's been hurt too. Worse, she's lost a part of herself that can never heal, all because of me!" Ruby cried, soon clasping her head as it ached and going into a screaming fit to the image of Weiss's shock as she began shattering into shards. "Cinder fall...I won't let you or any of those bastards get away with hurting them." Ruby groaned, her silver eyes growing darker by the second.

"This emotion Ruby's feeling now that consumes everything…This is rage!" IllusionWeiss realized as her torso was destroyed.

"RUBY!" Weiss's image yelled out in concern before growing silent, along with the void as darkness consumed it and Ruby.

Vengeance blackens the Soul

Meanwhile in the real world, Blake looked on in shock as Ruby's wrist blade shivered while stuck in Mercury's bloody hand. Her declaration brought shivers down the cat girl's spine, never having felt such bloodlust from the real Ruby. This wasn't like her at all, she thought Ruby would never willingly take another's life.

"I'm sorry Blake." Ruby whispered. Even missing half an ear, Blake could hear the surprising apology easily.

"Ruby?" Blake called out to her.

"I'm sorry you got hurt Blake. It's all my fault, but I promise it won't happen again. I'm sick of my friends getting hurt and scarred because of me. This ends today!" Ruby cried as she applied more force into her wrist, trying to draw the blade closer to Mercury's chest as he stood his ground.

Suddenly, Cinder began laughing as she felt a surge of ecstasy arise within her, making Yang and Weiss feel disturbed.

"What's going on with her? What's got her laughing?" Yang asked wearily.

"Don't know, but it's creeping me out." Weiss said as she gripped her lance, ready for an attack from the deranged witch.

"Hehehe. Well now-" Cinder began to eerily say, the room swelling up with heat as her aura flared to the girls concern. Outside the base, Ruby paused her assault on Mercury as she felt a surge of pain strike her head, everything soon going hazy.

"What an interesting development." Cinder said from the base, before one of Ruby's silver eyes was replaced with Cinder's amber one that cried. "Ruby rose." Cinder and Ruby said in unison to Blake and Adam's surprise, realizing she had regained control over Ruby.

"A truly interesting development. Ruby's blood is boiling with rage and hatred towards us. She was really trying to kill you right now, huh Mercury?" Cinder asked gleefully to Mercury who grinned and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, thinking nothing of the failed attempt as his aura healed his slit hand.

Blake felt her heart begin skipping beats as she heard this revelation. Ruby was willing to kill of her own choice? For vengeance?

"How much did these monsters torment her to push her that far" She thought. Suddenly Ruby's face formed an annoyed expression as Cinder realized something concerning.

"Wait a sec. This actually poses a problem." Cinder said with a grimace. "Ruby may be overwhelmed with hatred right now like I wanted, but that means she'll have an easier time regaining control and lashing out at us the longer this fight drags on. I need to keep her alive as long as possible to drag on her suffering, but I still will have to destroy a defiant puppet that's no longer useful to me. Damn this is becoming a mess!" Cinder thought before an explosion from within the base made the ground tremble to everyone's shock before a gust of hot wind blew the door open.

"Yang? Weiss?" Blake cried out softly, fearing the worse. Ruby began walking towards the entrance.

"Mercury." She called out to the assassin who looked at her attentively.

"Yes?" He asked.

"I'm going to bring Ruby into the fight alongside me. I hope you don't mind." She asked, though Mercury could tell by her tone she didn't care if it bothered him truly.

"Just do whatever you want. I don't give a crap." Mercury groaned as she then instantly disappeared, scattering into a storm of rose petals that flew into the base.

"Glad you saw it my way!" She yelled before exiting.

Mercury stood before both Faunus, a dark look of dread and anger etched on his face as he braced himself for the fight of his life.

Earlier….

The sound of blades clanging echoed throughout the base as Cinder and Weiss parried each other. Though while Weiss was visibly annoyed, putting more power and effort into each thrust and slash, she could see not just by the calm and cocky look on Cinder as she parried them with her twin blades, she could feel the light yet firm pressure from them that Cinder wasn't exerting nearly her full strength.

"You dare make light of me!?" Weiss thought bitterly. Yang saw her friend's frustration, her own grew as she got fed up waiting for an opening between their slashes to strike.

"I'll just make my own opening then!" Yang angrily thought as she charged. She loaded a grenade into her left Ember Cecelia and shot it at the ground between the two girls, forcing them to jump back and separate their blades. Yang took the chance to lunge at Cinder while she was in mid-air with her right Ember Cecilia, but Cinder just smirked to her annoyance, her expression just saying "you can't hit me cow".

True to thought, Cinder just casually jerked her body to the left to avoid the first punch then parried the left gauntlet with a simple slash with her right blade. Yang grew ever more frustrated by her enemies attitude. She jerked her arms back, charging the gauntlets with her aura before shooting forward a blast of fire with a combination of aura and flame dust. Cinder felt the force and heat from the blast coming. She knew it couldn't kill her, but Cinder needed to keep her aura up to avoid losing control of Ruby so bent her knees to jump as high as she could to avoid the blast.

She soon saw a white glyph form above her head midair, blocking her path as she saw another one form underneath the heiress below, accelerating her speed as she aimed her lance straight for the witch's chest.

"This is for Ruby!" Weiss thought as her hand itched, growing impatient to end this monster and end her friends suffering.

Cinder didn't lose her smirk, not feeling pressured in the slightest as she casually grabbed the lance by its blade, dancing around it and delivering a kick to Weiss's head, flashing her aura as she crashed into a nearby crate.

As Cinder landed on her knees, her Grimm arm shook, sensing great rage nearby. Cinder stole a glance to her left, seeing red eyes of fury from Yang as she aimed her gauntlet for the witch's head. Cinder simply lifted her hand to block a bullet with a small ball of fire that melted it. Yang shivered as she saw Cinder's right eye glow and emit a small stream of fire, before seeing her hand erupt a massive fireball that enveloped Yang, her aura and semblance barely managing to absorb them, but the shockwave still sent her flying back, crashing into a nearby crate, groaning in pain as her chest began to throb and clenched it painfully.

"Yang." Weiss said weakly as she knelt, struggling to get back up as she saw her friends distress. She knew it was a bad idea bringing Yang here. Her scars were probably about to burst open.

"To answer your question from earlier Schnee, those crates are indeed fill of dust….highly unstable dust at that." Cinder said eerily as she summoned a bow from the dust on her clothes. She drew a flame arrow in one hand and unleashed it to the side of Yang's head to her confusion.

"She missed me?" Yang thought before seeing a glow in the corner of her eyes.

"YANG!" Weiss's horrified scream for her friend was the last thing heard before a massive explosion echoed throughout the base and was heard outside.

Cinder looked upon the massive cloud of flames and smoke she presumed Xiao Long was consumed by with a massive grin of satisfaction.

Meanwhile…

"She left you alone when it was strategically wiser to fight us alongside you." Adam said with a scathing tone, not that he was surprised. He knew humans always stabbed others in the back. As if reading his mind, Blake soon spoke up about that notion.

"How can you work so someone who'd so selfishly abandon you for their own goals?" Blake asked bitterly, but Mercury just scowled in response.

"Listen." He said angrily, stiffening his opponent's bodies as they readied their weapons at his dark tone. "When I first met Cinder, she was an intelligent and calculating woman. Her power alone was enough to make anyone, even me, follow her out of respect…or fear." Mercury said.

Adam grinded his teeth a bit as he heard that reason. He hated every bit of it, but he silently admitted the human's words were true. His own partnership with Fall having been to preserve his men's lives at the time.

"But that's not her anymore. She's nothing like the woman she used to be. Cinder is a wild beast whose thrown caution to the wind, thinking of only of destroying her enemies inside and out. I'm not fighter for her anymore, I just know whether its her or you two, I can't leave here in peace. If I gotta go down, I'd rather do it kicking." Mercury said with a dark glare as he lifted one if his cyborg knees at the ready. He was honestly regretting sticking around as long as he did anyway. He had only himself to blame growing cocky and wanting to see how much little red would suffer, knowing it was about to cost him.

"I might have made it out with just those 3 girls around, but you now too Adam, no way. Truth be told now I wish I never got into this." Mercury thought with a grimace as Blake lunged at him, delivering a slash with her katana he easily dodged by jumping backwards. He grit his teeth in frustration as he soon had to duck to avoid her whip as its attached blade aimed for his feet, seeing her motive.

"Damn her! She keeps aiming for my feet!" Mercury thought as he struggled to avoid a flurry of slashes from the catgirl.

Soon Mercury saw an opening as Blake slowed her volley to breath and try a slower midsection slash he easily dodged and delivered a roundhouse kick to her gut, but Blake used her hand as a platform to twirl and attempt a counter kick he easily dodged. He attempted to deliver a punch to her jaw only have hit breath hitch as he frantically jerked his arm to use its gauntlet to parry a sudden slash from Adam. The pressure the bull faunus put on the blade was intense, nearly knocking Mercury off his feet. He soon grabbed Adam by the collar with his free hand and tossed him to the ground, though this left him vulnerable to a sudden shotgun blast he barely avoided, feeling the heat on his ear.

"Now I know how the cat bitch felt. I think its time to finish this." Mercury thought as he cocked his robot leg's revolvers, soon delivering a seemingly random volley of dust shots that flew threw the air around the faunus duo.

"Random shooting?" Adam thought before Mercury shot 2 more blasts that ricocheted the volley, causing them to head towards his enemies and create a huge explosion.

While the dust was clearing, Mercury smirked as he saw a wobbly figure in the smoke.

"Heh! Looks like I got the cat at least." He said proudly. Soon his spine froze as all he saw instead of a corpse was a sizzling stone clone.

"A DECOY!" He yelled in shock before feeling a presence behind him, followed by a sharp slash from a blade to his back.

"SHIT! There goes most of my aura!" Mercury painfully thought. "She moved too fast and struck hard! She's a scary cat!" He thought. As he began parrying her slashes with his kick's, a scarier thought than Blake's attack crossed his mind.

"Hold one….where the hell is Adam then!" He thought, almost kicking himself for forgetting the bull faunus if not for how much it would hurt considering his metal legs.

"I'm ready! Get outta the way Blake!" He heard Adam yell, stealing a glance to his right to see the man's red hair and blade glowing, having successfully charged up enough energy.

"CRAP!" Mercury groaned in fear before seeing a red glimmer flash by him, before all he saw next was the sky as he fell on his back. Adam had successfully slashed the cyborgs legs of, sending him falling helplessly as his aura evaporated upon impact on the ground. Mercury groaned as he painfully rolled onto his stomach and vainly began crawling towards the forest.

"Damn it GAH!" He groaned as Adam pressed his hard boot to his spine, trapping him in place.

"I originally came to kill Cinder, but I'll make do with you." Adam said coldly as he raised his blade to Mercury's fright. "See you in hell." Adam casually said as he swung.

Suddenly a hand shot out and stopped the blade, blood oozing as the sharp edges dug into the fingers and stopped the blade inches from Mercury's head to his shock.

"I won't let you kill anyone Adam!" Blake yelled sternly to both men's confusion. Why would she save her enemy? They both thought.

"Blake…why save this piece of crap of a human?" Adam asked his former partner.

"What good would killing him do us? He can't even fight anymore." She retorted.

"Are you saying you can let him go? After he tortured your human friend and shot off your ear?" Adam asked bitterly, scoffing at the mere notion.

"Trust me…I hate this guy more than anyone and want him dead, yes. But he can't do anymore damage now, it wouldn't be right. You claim to want a world better for Faunus, one free of discrimination but it's people like you who make that peaceful dream too far-fetched to be reality!" Blake said spitefully to Adam's shock.

"What?!" He asked angrily, grinding his teeth but Blake didn't falter. She wasn't scared of him anymore.

"If we kill people just because we hate them that would just make us the monsters. That would make us the beasts humans saw us as!" Blake yelled fervently. Adam took a deep breath to calm down as he processed this, but he still couldn't help but find it ridiculous, especially as he remembered the dead eyes of that girl earlier.

"What about your silver-eyed friend? She just tried to kill the scum out of hatred." He retorted. Blake lowered her gaze solemnly at that reminder. It was indeed a painful reminder, but she knew why it happened, just as she knew who Ruby truly was inside past that anger.

"Ruby's been put through hell and forced to hurt her friends because of these people. I imagine she's scared and angry. I can't blame her for trying to kill him, anyone would do the same if they were in her shoes." Blake said sadly. She soon fixed Adam a stern glare before he could retort.

"But that's not Ruby at all! She has a kind and pure heart that yearns to protect people. I'm certain if she had actually killed Mercury…she would have regretted that for the rest of her life." Blake said as a tear strolled down her eye at the mere thought of a traumatized and pale Ruby crying for forgiveness after the act.

"I'm glad she didn't kill Mercury, because she is the one who gives me hope for a brighter future even with humans like him around. She makes me want to make kids like her live their days without having to be tainted by them, to not have to taint her hands with someone else's blood." Blake said with a smile, one that soon descended bitterly as she fixed a dark glare to Adam at what he asked next.

"You really care a lot about that girl." He asked bitterly, hints of jealousy she could sense in his tone.

"Ruby is one of the closest people to my heart. I'd do anything to protect her." She said firmly.

"Anything? Even if you have to kill Cinder to save her?" He asked, prodding at her for what seemed like a contradiction to her conviction. Blake grit her teeth and solemnly closed her eyes.

"Yes. It's the only way to save Ruby from that monsters control. I would kill Cinder Fall if I got the chance. To save Ruby, I WON'T HESISTATE!" Blake yelled firmly. She and her team all had that resolve long ago, no one not even Adam would shake that.

Adam on the other hand, saw that dead look in Ruby's eyes flash before his mind. He lowered his blade at the thought. "Even though I hate humans, even I wanted to help her." Adam bitterly thought as he withdrew his blade into his scabbard.

"Fine Blake, I'll leave that to you then. As long as my men survive I don't mind. Goodbye." He said as he began to turn back towards the forest to Blake's surprise.

"Adam-" She whispered before her cat ears twitched. She grew pale as she began hearing low grumbling and growls in that direction, ones she instantly recognized.

"Grimm!" She yelled. But her cry was drowned out by another massive burst of heat and energy she felt explode out the door to the base.

"Oh no." She whispered, fearing the worst for her friends.

"BLAKE! Go help your friends! I'll take care of those demons coming, I only don't promise I'll stop them from making a meal out of him instead of just me got it!?" Adam yelled as he drew back his blade.

"Adam….Thank you!" She reluctantly yelled as she ran into the base.

"Weiss, Yang….Ruby! Please be alright!" Blake nervously thought. She wanted more than anything to hope for their survival, to reunite with them all and hug them. More than anything though, she wanted to see her leader and crushes smile one more time when she met her.

"Mark my words Fall, Team RWBY is getting back the leader we know and love!" Blake thought firmly.