Chapter 36 – Ruby's Tenth Tunnel

Ruby was on the fifth tunnel out of ten. She had no idea why pacing herself like she did mattered so much to her, but from the way the room was designed and Salem's nebulous orders to 'improve' her maiden powers, she imagined that there was probably some great challenging Grimm behind that tunnel to conquer. However, given that it was the biggest of the ten and could probably allow something large like a Giant Nevermore of King Taijitu through, she wanted to work her way up to it by conquering all of the little Grimm first.

Behind fabulous Door #5 was…drumroll, please…a Beowolf! An alpha, at that. How well thought out!

Serious, what was Salem's plan with sending me here? Did she just build a Grimm dispenser and think that would be enough to sharpen my claws against?

Well, Salem was a magic wielder from early humanity's ancient prehistory, so she probably knew this stuff better than Ruby. Maybe it was just a creative way to work out her magical muscles with no deeper meaning.

Or maybe there's a vampire inside the last room! There's really no way to know.

Other than to clear all ten levels before it and find out, that was.

To that end, Ruby had been practicing on bettering her magic for weeks, at this point. There were infinite Grimm since they spawned from the pools of grape juice just outside the castle, so the only limiting factor on her growth was how much time she invested.

At this point, if she went as far as possible without overstressing and therefore hurting her body, she could now send out a stream of uninterrupted fire for ten continuous seconds, fly, freeze a volume of up to 18 gallons of water instantly, and manipulate the pressure of the air to make a shield around her entire body.

Oops. Did she say 'and'? The right word for that scenario was 'or.'

Unfortunately, bettering herself was a slow process, and Ruby was forced to concede that she might not be able to grind continuously until she perfected herself. Salem's patience was not infinite, and Watts had been dropping little clues about Ruby going back into the field for the past few days.

While Ruby certainly could continue to practice her powers when out in the real world imposing Salem's will, she really wanted to figure out what was hidden at the end of the final tunnel. She could just skip ahead and ask the Seer to let out one of the Grimm from it, but that felt like cheating. Where was the buildup? Where was the tensions?

I have to finish the last five tunnels, and I have to finish them soon.

Door number six had an Ursa behind it (a freakin' minor), and Ruby felt a little gypped.

I saw those at home all the time! Why would it be…how could it be…just why?

She forced herself to sigh. Salem knew what she was doing. This was all part of Ruby's training. There was a process to these sorts of things.

"You know that's not true," said Qrow. "There's no process."

You didn't start with a three-course dinner. You did your jumping jacks first.

"Replace one of those things with marathon or appetizers," said Qrow in an exasperated tone. "Please."

Ruby blocked the Ursa's paw with a shield of compressed air and cut it down with her scythe. She had found, over the course of the past five doors, that manipulating the air tended to be the cheapest way to use magic, since air was fairly light as elements went (when compared to water or rocks) and it didn't require creating any power like fire or electricity.

It didn't seem all that destructive, but it was amazing how much control she could get of her environment over an enemy by setting up a simple backwind to blow against them. Air ripples from targeted pockets of vacuums could knock someone back quite a ways, and air shields from compression were almost impenetrable.

Ruby let out a sigh. As much as she wanted to continue, she was bushed.

It sucked, but every day when she came back after clearing out each and every tunnel, they were all replenished. Again, Ruby had the choice to pick up where she left off, but it felt like she was meant to learn something from this. If she cheated her way through by using save points, she would only be robbing herself of the intended lesson from Salem.

"Ruby, don't be daft," pleaded Qrow. "You know there isn't some intended lesson. Just finish this and go to number 10 already."

Sighing angrily, she ignored her stupid bird-familiar-uncle and turned back to the room's main entrance.

Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow, she would go all the way or die trying.

The seventh tunnel rewarded her with a brand new Grimm, and quite a cool one at that.

It wasn't based on any animal that she could recognize, and it didn't even seem to be based on biological life. Ruby wasn't really sure how to describe it.

The Grimm was split up into four different pieces that weren't attached physically but were very clearly all part of the same beast, because they moved in perfect coordination. If she had to describe it like a creature, it seemed to be four legs that had no joints all connected to a nonexistent body. They weren't even moving at the same time or anything; it was just that, when one of them stopped moving towards Ruby, the next one in a counterclockwise pattern would start moving towards her. Three remained stationary at any time, and they always moved in perfectly straight lines for the same amount of time before stopping.

Calling them legs wasn't right either. They were more like pillars. The Grimm bone part was at the base and was a wide platform, sort of shaped like a ten-pointed star. It hovered in the air, maybe just barely a half inch from the ground. It fed upwards like a pyramid, getting thinner until it reached the black portion, which was just an extra long cylinder that pointed perfectly straight and nearly scratched the ceiling.

The pillars were faster than most of the Grimm that Ruby had encountered, but they didn't really seem to have any method of imparting damage other than just slamming themselves into Ruby. It was like she was fighting four loosely coordinated roomba vacuum cleaners wearing the weirdest top hats of all time.

Oh, and they seemed to be getting faster. Wonderful.

Now this is the kind of training I can get behind. A new Grimm, and a challenging one at that? I'm gonna have to really push myself.

"Remember, there's a lesson to be learned here, or Salem wouldn't have had it here," Qrow pointed out. He sounded a lot more pleasant now that Ruby's spirits were up.

Despite having cleared tunnels one through six just moments before, Ruby was at a decent enough aura to continue, and she had magic aplenty after having learned the best and most efficient ways to take down the early level monsters.

At the moment, Ruby was fast enough to dodge the pillars as they floated towards her, one by one. That gave her a moment to think about it logically.

She tested one of the stationary ones with a small flick of dense air. The pillar didn't seem to be damaged by it at all and moved like expected when its turn came around.

Ruby waited for it to pass by her and for another pillar to start moving, and then she did the same weak probe against the projectile. It, too, seemed unaffected.

So, they're defensive enough to tank hits, and it's not a shield that goes up or down when they're moving. Could the feet-parts be a weak spot?

Ruby kicked the ground and set out an air wave that went out in all directions.

That got the pillars' attention. All four of them wobbled, and the one that was in motion briefly stalled. However, when it restarted after a one second pause, it was coming after Ruby a lot faster. She raised Crescent Rose and stuck it forward to repel the attack, but to Ruby's amazement, she found herself being pushed back by the Grimm appendage.

I certainly got its attention, but this thing has some serious armor.

It didn't matter, though. Now that she knew its weak spot was the bony plates at the bottom, she could just kill them at her leisure. Ruby shot a medium-sized fireball down at the next pillar as it tried to attack her, destroying it with an explosion of smoke.

And then the pillar waved through the smoke and smacked into her.

What? How could it survive?! I landed a hit directly on the bottom!

The next pillar was already upon her before she could even think on that problem, forcing Ruby to back up. The pieces of Grimm were now moving even more rapidly; not too fast for Ruby the speed demon, mind you, but fast enough that they were becoming a tiresome nuisance to avoid.

Every attack was making it go faster, meaning that she needed to figure this out quickly.

Remember, there's a lesson here. What haven't I learned to do with magic yet that this thing could teach me?

This thing…the four legs were all separate entities but moving in synchronicity. If there was some central mechanism connecting them, then Ruby would need to find it somehow. She could imagine Salem putting her up against this Grimm in order to force her to figure out how to use magic to locate a hidden enemy.

There was no way to 'sense' something, not in a mystical sense that one might think, but Ruby didn't need to sense it like that. If she pushed out with magic in all directions, she would be able to see what pushed back or blocked her probing and determine the location of the secret hive mind using that.

Ruby heated up the water vapor in the air around her and let it form a thick fog.

All I need to do is see where there's a blank space, and that's my guy.

The only problem was that there was no way for her to blanket the entire room in fog. If she tried, she'd falter and run out of energy.

Maybe the lesson is simpler than that. I don't need to cover the entire room; if I make a small, sustainable bubble of fog and just circle around all over the place, I'll be able to scan the room like a metal detector, bit by bit. The trick isn't to stretch out my power thinly over a wide space, but to think of smarter ways to apply it.

The Grimm was now moving only a little bit slower than Ruby was, so she had to make haste. The bubble of fog expanded out in all directions until it reached about ten feet away from Ruby. That was the kind of distance she could keep up without draining herself of stamina faster than she recovered it.

She and the Grimm danced around the giant room for several minutes. Ruby made sure to plan her path so that she could both avoid the battering rams and also cover as much ground as efficiently as possible. She checked the center of the room first, then back towards the entrance tunnel. When nothing was there, she moved past each tunnel individually, ending at the seventh tunnel from which this bizarre creature had originated.

And none of them had anything.

Okay. So, this was getting kind of tricky. If the controller could move, there would be no way to locate it short of scanning the entire room, but that was beyond the scope of her abilities right now, so she ignored it. Maybe it was, but fixating on the impossible was pointless when other options were yet to be tried. The pillars were now keeping pace with her, meaning that attacking it would soon be out of the question, and avoiding getting hit would be next.

I scored a solid hit on it before when I went for the base, but then that didn't work the second time. What changed?

Maybe it was immune to fire? She had changed the type of attack.

Ruby's hand shot out, and she blasted a stationary Grimm pillar with a concussive burst of air. It was the same thing she'd used to attack it the first time that had worked, just stronger.

Nothing.

"Bravo. You just made it a whole lot madder 'n' faster," Qrow pointed out, perched on the crystals at the center of the room and watching the whole thing play out with a smirk.

Ruby somersaulted to avoid being run over. "Not helping!"

"Hey, I only know what you know." His wings raised in what Ruby assumed was the bird equivalent of a shrug. "Don't blame the hallucination."

The pillars were now hitting her just as frequently as they missed, meaning that she was on a timer until her aura ran out. They were like brick walls that slammed into her with the force of a rhinoceros, and such a violent and persistent distraction made thinking out a strategy on how to beat them rather difficult.

It had to be about the feet. She'd made them stop when she'd hit them all together, and that was the only successful instance of –

Wait.

It can't be that easy, can it?

Ruby waved her hand through the air horizontally, and four jets of condensed air sliced towards the four Grimm pillars. It cost her nearly all of her remaining magic, but it struck the quartet at the same time.

All four of them stopped moving for just a second. The closest one shook a tiny bit, and the one to Ruby's left actually cracked a tad.

And then it started moving faster than Ruby.

Impacts rained down upon her, and she wasn't given a moment's rest to think as each pillar drove its entire body into her. Ruby tried to hit back, but Crescent got knocked out her hands, and her tiny fists weren't enough to do anything.

"Huh."

Magic!

Ruby's aura broke from the next impact, and the pillar after that zoomed towards her.

"If you kick the bucket here…"

I have to use magic!

Despite lacking aura, her semblance, her scythe, or nearly enough magic, Ruby thrust both hands out with as much force as she could.

She had no idea where she dredged up the power from, but her attack landed. Chunks of rock burst out of the ground in accordance with Ruby's will and sailed into the Grimm pillars with the force of a tidal wave. The one that had been about to smack her down was shredded apart instantly, and the three others behind it all cracked apart under the relentless barrage of rubble until they were no more.

Ruby had no idea how she'd accomplished this feat of magic, but she knew that she had to milk it for all it was worth. Latching onto that feeling of desperation that had been inside of her head, she continued to tear apart the floor and ravage the room. Using this much magic had previously been beyond her, and if she could master tapping into this vein of power, it would be a huge jump upwards in mastering the maiden powers.

Only when her arms were physically too tired to hold up did she stop. There was a crater around Ruby from the bits of floor she'd psychically torn apart and thrown.

T-That was…

Ruby couldn't finish the thought. Exhaustion claimed her, and she passed out right there.

When she awoke and gathered enough wherewithal to remember just what had happened, her body felt like it was made of jelly.

So I can go crazy when I'm in danger, but it takes a lot out of me, then. That'll be good for emergencies, I guess.

Ruby heard her stomach growl. Checking her scroll quickly, she saw that she'd been unconscious all night, and it was now mid-morning of the next day.

I really ought to get some breakfast. I'm starving.

Except…

The eighth, ninth and tenth tunnels.

If the seventh had a beast like that, Ruby was really curious to see what was behind the higher up ones.

"No one's stopping you," urged Qrow. He flew over to the entrance of the eighth tunnel, landing just beneath the Seer. "Why don't you have a peek?"

"Because that pillar leg thing nearly trounced me," Ruby said, picking herself up. "I don't wanna rely on my don't-die instincts to fight everything. I need to practice more before I go any higher." She turned towards the exit of the room. "I'm gonna go get something to eat, and maybe take a shower. I can't go any further right now."

"But if you call it here and go back, you'll need to start from scratch," said Qrow.

Ruby swiveled around to face him, still backing up towards the door. "I'll just start at eight tomorrow."

"B-But that's cheating!"

She shrugged. "Says who?"

Qrow had no retort for that.

When Ruby asked the Seer at the entrance to the eighth tunnel to send in one of its fighters, she found herself face to face with a big-ass Deathstalker.

"What the hell?" she asked to no one in particular. "How is this supposed to…"

The Deathstalker tried to skewer her with its tail, but she just swung Crescent Rose and cut the stinger right off. It landed on the ground next to her, and Ruby watched the Grimm writhe around with a chitter of pain.

She looked behind her and saw that she indeed was in front of the right tunnel, not having mixed up the eighth door with something lower. Nah, this was the right one.

Ruby snapped her fingers, and diagonal lances of ice shout out of the ground from beneath the Grimm, piercing its legs and ripping them apart. The main portion of its carapace landed with a dull thud, and Ruby chucked Crescent Rose right into its brain.

"Seriously, what the hell?"

"Lesson?" said Salem. "What lesson?"

"The lesson, the one you wanted to teach me by having me face waves of Grimm one at a time and clearing them out all in one run and –"

"Ruby, I sent you to the Grimm vending machine room machine because it's the furthest away from my throne room, and I assume you wouldn't want to see much of me after that dreadful business we had those weeks ago."

Dreadful business? Salem had tortured Ruby to the brink of breaking her arm open with her Scarab!

And also…

"G-Grimm vending machine room?"

Salem nodded. "Tyrian told me of human cultures in the modern era, and he described your peoples love of robotic vendors. I attempted to make one a few years back but couldn't figure out the details and just left it be."

"B-B-But the challenge…the Seers…"

"The Seers weren't supposed to bother you," Salem said. "I specifically gave them instructions to not interfere with your training so that you could have a quiet room to practice your maiden powers in."

So, there was no…

This whole time, it really had just been…

Heh.

Heh, it was all…

"Ha. S-Snrk."

Salem blinked. "What?"

"It sounds like you need some time alone," Qrow said. He kicked off of Ruby's shoulder and flew towards the door. "I'll see myself out."

Ruby couldn't help but start snickering. "Hahaha, oh, that's a good one!"

"Little Rose, are you alright?" Salem asked. She placed a hand against Ruby's forehead as though to check her temperature for a fever. "You're starting to cackle like Tyrian does when he murders someone, and I'd rather not have two people with that energy."

She had been so insistent on finding a deeper meaning that she'd ignored the stupid things she'd been doing until it damn nearly killed her.

"Hmmm…wonder if that's the first time you've done that," Qrow said before leaving Ruby to her laughter and Salem to her concern.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Prisoner

And now, a tip from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #877 – Seriously, what the hell was that thing? I still don't know.

Author's Notes

This is easily the worst chapter in the whole fanfic. I wrote it because I wanted to have more Ruby training and take a breather from intense plot, but it just feels kinda dumb. Literally filler as Ruby practices with maiden powers. But I couldn't delete it because then my schedule falls apart, so...yeah. At least it's over now.

Don't worry – actually interesting stuff takes off again next week.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!