Chapter 32 – Ruby's Final Stretch

If looks could kill, then Hazel's deathglare would be drilling a hole into the back of her skull, inserting a hooked rod into her brain cavity to scoop out her gray matter, and frying it on the stovetop to serve en flambe.

Fortunately, looks could not kill, and neither could Hazel's disapproval. Ruby just walked in front of the man, and she didn't have to see his little temper tantrum at not having had to give up. Seriously, there were times when she wondered why Salem kept someone who was this big of a baby around.

Except I don't. He's right; turning back would be the right thing to do. Any sane person would – hell, even Tyrian wants to, and he's insane.

She was only pressing on because of that small part of her that dared to hope this mission Ozpin had laid on her shoulders would eventually end. It had been fed a minute quantity of hope, and now it was too hungry for more to turn back. Ruby was gambling her life and the lives of her companions that Lìxià the Summer maiden would have enough supplies to get them back down the mountain.

But it's not like those are important things. It would be a good thing overall if Tyrian and Hazel died, and my own life has been…empty, let's call it, ever since I killed Uncle Qrow. Finding redemption at the top of Mount Serathusa would be great, but it's a long shot.

They were now about three quarters of the way up the face of the mountain, and things were intensifying with every step. The sandstorms were pretty much in full swing perpetually, but the heat was somehow even more intense despite the sand cover. Ruby didn't regret destroying their water, but her body was feeling the burn as she and her two companions split one last canteen between the three of them. It was a blessing that the hound didn't eat or drink.

If we die, I guess he gets to go home. Or would he just sit here and wait for orders? Salem told him to help us and didn't give him explicit instructions to return home in the event of failure.

Maybe Cinder would find him when Salem went back to Plan A.

I wonder if she really would kill Cinder if I died. Like, she said that it would be proof that Cinder didn't train me hard enough, but if I did die, killing her last remaining loyal female minion wouldn't do much to bring me back.

…but then again, Salem needs Cinder to know with absolute certainty that it's not an empty threat.

…but then again again, if I'm dead, it wouldn't matter. There's no way to know, I guess.

Ruby tried to shift her brain away from such morbid thoughts and scanned the horizon for signs of Grimm activity. She'd wanted to do some minor scouting using Grubbie at nights just to make their walk during the day that much easier, but the rip-roaring winds had nearly buffeted her Scarab into an early g̶r̶a̶v̶e̶ pile of Grimm ash, so that was a no-go.

Grimm were the one thing that didn't scale up as they got higher. They were simple creatures, and while they would follow a human into a sandstorm without a second thought for their own safety, they had no reason to risk their lives without any sapient bait to lure them this far out.

These sandstorms…I wonder if they're truly natural or if it's a sign we're getting closer to our quarry. It's been nearly continuous since we got up here.

The sands weren't so thick that Ruby couldn't see ahead, but without the goggles Hazel had packed, she would've gone blind one hundred times over by now.

If it were Lìxià's powers whipping up the desert, it would be an effective deterrent. Any who came to disturb her were motivated to turn back the other way, and if they wanted to challenge her to combat, their aura would take a hit from being ground out by the rough grit. Ruby's first and second shawl had been shredded, and she was starting to feel the sand through Tyrian's loaned one.

The men had foregone any protection and were braving the weather. According to them, Ruby's safety as the maiden rival was paramount, and they could afford to expend their aura slightly to ensure she was covered.

Back to what I was thinking before, though – is this the power of the maiden? If it is, that means it's because of our intrusion or because she has a perpetual shield of hurricane-speed dust up around her home. If it's the former, we're screwed because she knows we're coming. If it's the latter, we're screwed because she's so powerful that she can keep up an eternal sirocco of wind and san as an added layer of defense.

On the eve of the fifth day, when Hazel declared they were breaking camp and struggled to erect the poles for their makeshift tent, Ruby got to work on preparing Crescent for combat. She didn't have any tools or parts with her, but her innate knowledge of the inner workings of the weapon, a blade she understood better than her own body, was enough.

The hound curled up and rested its head against the side of her thigh as she sat cross-legged in the sand. Ruby gave it a quick tussle on the bony head before checking and rotating the movable joints on her scythe. She had no reason to suspect anything was out of spec, but this was going to be the fight of her life, and she refused to lose it because of something stupid like a misfire at a key time.

Out of the corner of her vision, she saw Tyrian sitting down in front of her. He was a few feet away and also cross legged, angled so that he faced her directly. Ruby continued to tune up her scythe, tightening what screws she could and brushing off any sand that had gotten into the cracks.

The Faunus said nothing to her, so Ruby said nothing back. Both just sat in one another's presence, content to let the silence do the speaking for them.

Ruby paused the work on her scythe to give the hound another pat just as Hazel joined them. Tyrian scooched over, adjusting so that their three bodies could form the three points of a triangle. He too remained quiet.

We're going to find Lìxià tomorrow. I'd be amazed if all four of us make it out alive.

No one said a word, but their tone was somber. The two huntsmen opposite her understood it. Tomorrow, everything was going to change. No longer would she be Ruby, the zany disciple of Cinder who had randomly caught Salem's attention by a quirk in her eye color and just barely scraped by in Evernight among the murderers and thieves.

If she survived the fight, Ruby Rose would be swallowed whole by the destiny Salem had in mind for her.

The sandstorm had dissipated when she awoke several hours before dawn broke, giving Ruby a chance to soak in a clear view of the skies from the closest point to the heavens she'd ever been. Sleep had been fitful and troublesome, but she'd forced herself to get just enough rest to remain fully functional. Hazel and Tyrian slumbered just a few feet away inside the tent, and the hound remained where she'd left it, so perfectly still one might've mistaken it for a stone statue.

The stars were no longer visible, nor was the sun, but the moon was out and provided enough light. Even though the desert was hotter than a furnace during the day, Ruby found herself shivering in the crisp early morning air.

Wrapping herself up tightly in the tattered, sandy shawl, Ruby left the tent and walked the final stretch of her journey alone.

The Summer maiden's home was a quaint little place that would've reminded Ruby of her own home in Patch but even less technologically advanced. Her eyes roved up and down the house and encampment around it and saw no signs of electrical appliances.

I guess that's how she stayed off the grid from Salem and people like Watts. To live like this, with no modern comforts or scrolls or Dust for her entire life…Lìxià must be loyal to Ozpin something fierce.

You know, I wonder how Salem ever found her. It couldn't have been the Grimm if they're so separated from her that they aren't loyal. I guess it's something I'll have to ask her when I get home.

Home.

Ruby laughed aloud. I guess I really am starting to see Evernight as home.

But not for long. This right here is the beginning of the end.

The mountain plateaued at the top, which was why she hadn't seen the small wooden house from down below, but it wasn't the only thing visible in the moonlit sky. Several rows of some sort of stalk-based crop were growing in even lines in the sand. A small lake was also nearby, filling a crater carved out of solid rock and entirely devoid of plant growth or fish. Ruby supposed that if the maiden wanted to refill her reservoir, she could just summon the rain.

Ruby knelt down at the closest edge of the lake and drank up some water, quenching the thirst that had been building ever since she'd started this journey. She considered trying to eat some of the stalk-plant to keep her strength up but ultimately decided against it. She wasn't sure if it was safe to be eaten without cooking, and fighting on an overfull stomach could ruin her worse than some minor hunger.

It might not come to fighting.

But it might.

But maybe it won't.

Ruby steeled her nerves, hoping that the pounding of her heart wouldn't be enough to send her into cardiac arrest, and knocked on the door to the handmade house.

This was a risk, and probably an unnecessary one at that, but Ruby had made up her mind. She hadn't had to kill an innocent person on her mission yet, and if there were even a one in a quadrillion chance she could keep it that way, she was going to act on it.

No response came from inside after two minutes, so Ruby knocked again, but harder and more times this time.

"Lìxià? Can you come out? I'm sorry to wake you up so late, but –"

The door swung open, and Ruby found herself facing the pointed end of a two-pronged pitchfork held by a fierce-looking, middle-aged woman. Her pale skin seemed paradoxical given that she lived in such a sunny place, but every inch of exposed flesh was rippling with muscles. She wasn't wearing any visible armor and was garbed in simple brown toga, but the expression on her face said she meant business. Ruby took two wide steps back and held up her hands to show that she was unarmed. Well, minus the giant war scythe on her back.

"When the sun drops beneath the clouds, who takes its place?" the woman asked.

Ruby's breath caught. "I…whuh?"

"When the sun drops beneath the clouds, who takes its place?" she repeated.

"I don't know, uhhhh…the moon?" Ruby guessed.

"You aren't her," said Lìxià, if this was her. After the whole 'White Fang meeting' debacle back in Vale, Ruby wasn't taking chances by trusting Salem at her word.

"I'm not who? Look, Miss Lìxià, I'd like to speak with you. I just wanna talk, okay?"

The pitchfork, which upon closer inspection Ruby realized was just as much a farming implement as her own scythe, didn't go down. Ruby held her hands up even higher, hoping her good intentions would be made clear by her non-threatening posture.

"Can I come in?" Ruby asked.

"State your business and leave."

Ruby looked over the woman's shoulder at the inside of her house. There was little more than a bed, a single chair, a table, and a few wooden chests inside. "Miss, I'm already here, and there's nothing worth hiding in there. I don't think it makes a difference if I state my business inside or outside, other than us being cold."

The woman rotated her pitchfork to switch it to her dominant hand.

"Look, miss. If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn't have knocked." She shrugged. "I just wanna talk. I'm not asking you to hand over the pitchfork or put it down or something."

Lìxià's fingers curled around the shaft of her weapon with such a crushing grip that Ruby swore she saw the woman's aura crackle, but she took a step back.

"Enter."

Ruby smiled and nodded, walking through the doorway. "Thanks."

"Sit. In the chair."

Ruby complied. Without keeping her eyes off of Ruby, Lìxià took a seat on the middle of the bed.

"Now, you wanted to speak. Speak."

"I'm here on behalf of Ozpin."

Lìxià moved faster than Ruby could react. Her dark gray hair whipped through the air as she shot out of her bed and smacked Ruby's head with the butt of her weapon, knocking her out of the chair and onto the earthen ground.

There's…There's no floor here. She made walls to protect her from the elements, but she walks on the rocks and sand. I've heard of spartan living, but this is taking it to the next level.

"You lie!" screamed the woman. "You didn't know the answer! Liar!"

Ruby stayed down on the ground, hoping her deferential posture would be interpreted as a sign of goodwill. "If Ozpin gave you some code riddle, he didn't tell me. He wasn't planning on me coming here, but my work with him sent me your way."

"No more tricks." One of the pitchfork's pronged tapped against Ruby's throat, just enough to avoid breaking the skin. "You'll say what you have to say, or Original Sin will skewer you like a bale of hay."

Ruby nodded. She might not like being held at forkpoint, but telling her story was her only goal here.

"My name is Ruby Rose. I'm a huntress, or at least I was going to be one. You see, this thief guy noticed me when I was just chilling in a Dust shop one night, and…"

The story Ruby wove with a pitchfork to her neck was a wild one, an unbelievable one, an insane, crazy, way-out-there fable that only a madwoman would have bothered to believe.

It was also completely true.

She spun a wild web of truths, describing how she'd had entrance to Beacon granted on a headmaster's whim and rescinded just as abruptly by the chance cold she caught from another student.

She wove an insane tale of a ricocheting bullet from an improperly handled firearm striking an innocent man, only for another innocent man to offer absolution in the form of a second death.

She babbled nonsense about how a minion of a minion of Salem had picked her up, how Salem had chosen her for some unknown reason related to her silver eyes to be the grand executioner of her destructive vision for the future, how minions of far more loyalty and greater skill had been cast aside for no reason other than a vengeful woman's spite against the reincarnating headmaster.

She ranted and raved about the vile missions she'd been forced to complete, the insane company she'd had no choice but to keep, the abomination that had burrowed its way beneath her very skin and turned her part monster.

She beguiled the woman with a firsthand account of how Raven Branwen had revealed herself far earlier than anyone – Ozpin, Salem, or Ruby – could have expected, and how it had forced her to realize that she needed to become a maiden to destroy a maiden.

She showed Lìxià her Scarab.

And when the story of Ruby Rose's epic origins was complete, she waited for the woman's response.

Lìxià kept the pitchfork at Ruby's throat, and her anger did not dissipate.

"And what? You want me to destroy this stepmother of yours?"

"No," Ruby said, shaking her head as much as she could without getting skewered. "Her semblance is countered best by my own. I need to bring her down myself."

She scowled. "Then you're here to kill me."

"I was hoping to avoid that."

"Maiden powers transfer upon death, so unless you want to wait until I pass…"

Ruby sucked in a big breath of air. This wasn't going as well as she'd hoped it might…well, as she'd dared to dream it might. In a best case scenario, the Summer maiden would sympathize with Ruby's plight, not clash with every aspect of it.

"Have you any idea how I've lived the past twenty years?" Lìxià said, her eyes flaring manically. It was the kind of look Ruby had only seen before on news footage of criminals in court being sentenced – the crazed look of someone who no longer cared for their own life or wellbeing. This maiden knew no fear. "Ozpin impressed upon me the nature of my burden, and I have taken it upon myself to uphold my solitude to the highest standard there could be. My task is a demanding one, but I have risen to meet it with far greater aptitude and devotion than any other fleeting damsel would who could be thrust into it. My day is this and nothing more: I wake, I eat, and I train. I train until my mind burns and my bones break, all for the day that the enemy would show up at my doorstep, wearing the same colors you and your wretched creature boast, to claim my gods-granted powers. And you expect me to do what, slit my own throat so that you may inherit them for the busywork our commander assigned you?"

Ruby shook her head. "I don't want you to have to die. If I used the Scarab, I can get the powers, and it won't kill you. It shouldn't. I don't for sure, but I…"

She trailed off at the incredulous look on Lìxià's face. Her own uncertainty in regard to her plan made her feel very small in the face of this regimented superwoman who seemed to have a far greater handle on accomplishing what was expected of her.

"Miss, I don't want you to die," Ruby pleaded. "If we fight and I kill you and steal the power, I'd be that much closer to fulfilling my mission, but I don't want to have to lose myself on the way. I'm trying to save you."

"If you'd jeopardize your labor out of fear for your immortal soul, you aren't fit to be the one to complete it," Lìxià said. Surprisingly, she retracted her weapon and gestured for Ruby to stand. "And you're a fool if you think my life has any meaning beyond safeguarding these powers."

Ruby closed her eyes and shook her head, but Lìxià kept speaking.

"I am not like other humans. I need no companionship, no luxuries, no civilization. The mission Ozpin assigned me is the only life I need. Our goals are parallel; we cannot both succeed. Turn back, girl. Go home."

"I can't."

"Find Ozpin. I'm sure he'll release you from –"

"No," Ruby said. "No, I have my job. And I have to do it, for the sake of the world."

Lìxià smiled. "Then our convictions shall dictate which one of us is worthy to complete our missions. Mine to hold the powers, yours to rob."

"Please," Ruby said. "I'm on your side."

"Can I be sure?" Lìxià said. "Can I truly know this isn't a grand ploy to gain my trust? You may yet be a perjurer and a wretch, too weak to best me in plain combat and resorting to underhanded tactics. By your own word, you slew Ozpin, and you now bear a creature. For all I know, it may be the mind of that beast concocting this plan, and you its unwilling slave."

There was nothing Ruby could say or do to convince this woman of the truth. Honestly, Ruby wasn't entirely sure that she was doing the right thing, at the end of the day. The Spring maiden's powers were so dangerous because they got the relic that could reveal the locations of other maidens and relics, but if she claimed this maiden's powers here and now, it was all moot.

But if she turned back now…

Lìxià's face softened, and she placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "I believe you. I believe you, girl, that you are just a victim of circumstances far beyond your control much like the child I once was when I became a maiden. But…"

"…you can't be sure," Ruby finished for her.

She nodded.

Ruby stepped back, and the hand fell away from her.

"I'm sorry, Miss Lìxià. I'm so sorry."

Lìxià nodded. "I know."

Turning around, Ruby walked out the door. Morning was near, and the shimmering rays of sunlight could be seen peeking out above the horizon. Ruby normally loved watching sunrises, but she had a feeling the sight of them would soon be tainted forever in her eyes. Her fingers were shaking like a hummingbird as she took Crescent Rose off her back and extended it to its full length.

The Summer maiden followed her out, shutting the door behind her. The pitchfork she held, Original Sin, fell to her side as she rose into the air, fire exploding in violent jets out of her eyes. Her expression looked sorrowful; evidently, she was just as displeased with the prospect of killing Ruby as Ruby was with the prospect of having to kill her.

The wind began to pick up.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Blood

And now, a tip from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #970 – Never under any circumstances use an Uno Reverse Card in real life. You don't want to know what happens when someone else follows it up with a Wild Draw Four.

Author's Notes

She's not too far gone yet. I repeat, Ruby is not too far gone. She may ostensibly be Salem's evil minion, but this is Ruby we're talking about. It'll take more than a little trauma to make her go willy-nilly on the killy. As long as there's a way, she's going to try as hard as she can to keep everyone alive.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!