Author's Notes

I feel like there's no way we can be on chapter 40 already, not when this fic started in February. As you may have guessed based on last chapter, we're approaching a pivotal point or two.

By the way, Fell Pickerel (rather, F. Pickerel) is NOT an original character! His name is actually mentioned in the show and is pivotal for Tyrian's allusion. Tyrian is the scorpion who stings the frog from The Frog and The Scorpion, and Pickerel frogs (hence, F. Pickerel) are frog. Pickerel was mentioned as the huntsman who captured Tyrian before his recruitment by Salem (hence his status as a tough cookie and thorn in Salem's side). I thought it fitting that Tyrian be the one to avenge himself by torturing him in Evernight (back when there was an Evernight, and back when there was a Tyrian!).

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 40 – Ruby's Hunt

As the airship hovered around the skyspace above the village of Hibernance so that Watts could visually verify no survivors escaped on foot, Ruby felt a swirl of unpleasant emotions taking over her heart.

First and foremost was the guilt. There were so many reasons to be ashamed of herself right now. She'd killed all of those people, and it hadn't even been quick; burning alive was probably the worst way someone could go.

On top of that, she felt an acute sense of self-hatred for her own blatant hypocrisy. The hound and Tyrian had slaughtered an entire village, and Ruby hadn't felt nearly as bad then. True, she wasn't the one responsible then, but technically it was a fire that killed those people hundreds of feet down below. The point was, Ruby had held in her hands the power to stop the senseless death, and both times she'd ignored it.

And then, there was dismay over the root cause of it all – the huntsman. Fell Pickerel. She'd let him loose thinking herself above the consequences of such an action, and that had cost however many people were in the town their lives.

Roman's lesson echoed in her mind, one which she'd apparently failed to fully pick up. In her head, she considered his words on knowing one's boundaries and being willing to accept the consequences of crossing them, and she realized that she hadn't thought out either fully.

It had seemed like the risk was to Ruby's mission. Freeing the huntsman endangered her own life by possibly outing her to Salem, which she was willing to risk as long as there was a chance of getting away scot-free. That was arrogance, she now realized, arrogance in that Ruby had assumed she was invincible and would somehow be smart enough to weasel her way out of it. So many things had gone right recently – earning Salem's trust, usurping Cinder, finding Raven's location, acquiring the maiden powers – that Ruby had got it her head that these victories were due to some latent talent of her own, not chance, luck, or help.

Still, brushing all that stuff aside, Ruby's luck had somehow held, and Hazel had taken the fall. He either hadn't figured out what she'd done or had been so sure of his victory that he'd thought it unnecessary to mention his own innocence in the matter, so Ruby's secret crimes were now permanently swept under the rug, taken with Hazel to the grave. But she'd still failed to heed Roman's wise words.

There was always a reason behind a rule, and that reason was often to protect you. They didn't put up red lights at intersections and Do Not Enter signs around construction sites because they enjoyed bossing people around. Salem's rules might not have been formal laws, but they too had reasons behind them, and breaking them was something Ruby had done at her own risk. No, at everyone else's risk.

Seriously, what had Ruby thought was going to happen? That Salem would just give up on Pickerel after he got away once and leave him to pollute the world with dangerous awareness of her presence? And the worst part was, up until the annihilation of Hibernance just moments prior, she'd been fully prepared to make that same mistake again by letting Pickerel escape.

Even if she did manage to pull a fast one over Watts, there would be serious, real-world consequences to ignoring Salem's orders. Pickerel would spread word of Salem eventually, likely to his hunter allies or other authorities. Knowledge of a Grimm goddess wasn't something one kept their mouth shut about forever. Eventually, that knowledge would trickle down to Salem, and she would feel the need to snuff it out, and that would only mean more burnt villages and dead townsfolk. Even Ozpin knew better than to tell the world of Salem.

Giving in to temptations and freeing him when I knew better was my mistake. Sure, I saved one life, but I put so many others in grave danger.

Roman was right. Just because she could do something doesn't mean she should have.

Watts and Salem might have been trying to bring this guy down for the wrong reasons, but it would ultimately be to the world's benefit that he was silenced, one way or another.

They found his trail not hours after leaving behind the conflagration that was once a bustling community. Watts apparently had developed long range sensors that could pick up microparticles of Dust that had been left over from usage of weapons, likely against Grimm, and there was a path leading through the forest.

"We've got him tied to a leash," the scientist had said. "All that's left is to reel him in."

"That's not how fishing works," Ruby breathed, her voice hurting from all the coughing that the crying had brought.

"It matters little. Anyways, on to the important matter: you. That village clearly took a lot out of you. Will you b–"

"Yes."

Watts raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That's not what I meant."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "I know what you actually meant. Yes, I'm fresh enough with my powers to bring him in, and yes, I get that he has to…to…"

Ruby took a deep breath in. If she couldn't say the word, there would be no way she could do the deed.

"He has to die," she uttered at last.

Watts looked satisfied at that. "Now, the sensors won't be able to tell us how far out he is or if he changes direction, so we shall both need to keep a lookout. When we locate him, you may drop out of the bay doors and dispatch him at your leisure. Is this an acceptable division of labor?"

Ruby nodded mutely.

She'd never liked the idea of losing. In fact, she'd always hated it. Losing a game, losing a fight, losing anything – but the worst loss of all would be losing a life. Ruby had always known she was going to become a huntress, and the notion of failing to protect someone filled her to the brink with terror.

That was why she'd always sworn to never give up until everyone was safe. If two people were in danger, she would fight twice as hard and protect them both. No person, Grimm, or act of fate would force her to make a choice between one innocent life or another.

But now she realized that sometimes, there could be two irreconcilable options, each one precluding the other. Sometimes, you had to protect A by harming B, or vice versa. There were some choices that Ruby would have to make.

One thing was for certain, though. When this mission ended, so did Watts. So did Tyrian, so did Cinder, so did Lionheart, so did every enemy Ruby could get her hands on. Ruby was already the Summer maiden, and she was on track to becoming Spring soon. When she had those bargaining chips in her hands, Goodwitch and Ozpin would do what she asked, and then everyone who was at fault for all these horrible things Ruby had been forced to do would burn.

They weren't able to locate him before the trail of Dust ran out, which meant one of two things. He had either stopped using Dust…

"…or he's aware of our presence and consciously stopped," Watts said.

Ruby nodded and walked back to the rear of the airship. The rest was going to be up to her.

The doctor pressed the button to open the ramp. Ruby felt wind whooshing through her hair as the air pressure stabilized.

"Godspeed," said Watts, giving her a curt nod before turning back to the controls.

Ruby held her breath and leaned backwards. Within seconds, she was falling out of the sky as the bullhead grew smaller and the ground grew larger.

Ruby held out her arms and simply embraced the feeling of falling. There was something so simple about being able to let go, hand herself over to gravity, and ignore the ground until it was upon her. Her semblance enabled her to travel straight upwards and basically fly, but Ruby had recently come to appreciate the sensations that freefall gave her body. The air whipping against her hair, the world zooming by but also staying the same distance away due to perspective, Remnant rushing towards her and promising release when it came…

Falling felt a lot like dying. Ruby kinda liked it.

It was the power of the maiden that enabled her to land without taking damage. That said, her control wasn't excellent, so the forest floor wasn't so lucky. It wasn't as though Pickerel didn't know he was being chased, meaning that making noise didn't strictly matter, but Ruby had better avoid it in the future.

Watts had given her his best impression of a heading – merely the direction the Dust trail had been leading before it cut off – but there was no guarantee that her quarry wouldn't just change course.

Dust, it was such a weird sensation to be on the opposite end. The staple of Yang's gruesome, not-kid-friendly horror movies that Ruby had snuck into her room during Dad's episodes of n̶e̶g̶l̶e̶c̶t̶ depression was the chase scene. Usually, it was the monster that tore through the dirt with its rugged claws and drooling fangs as it relentlessly pursued its hounded prey with mindless determination. Regardless of what it was – a shapeshifted werewolf, an alien creature, a brain-eating zombie – the monster was always the one who hunted, and the protagonist got hunted.

Now, though? Ruby supposed she was both.

Ruby tore through the jungle with her semblance, keeping her senses sharp and her eyes turning for every little sign of motion. With the enhancements the maiden powers gave her, she could last longer at super speed, so she could afford to expend a little aura here without it risking everything. Without any clues, Ruby had no idea if Pickerel was running off in fear or hunkering down for a protracted duel.

It's probably the latter. If he just escaped from Salem's clutches, he'll be in no shape to stand and fight. That doesn't mean I can slack off, but it does mean he's going to put everything he has into fleeing or hiding.

There was the option of doing something drastic like lighting a forest fire to draw him out forcibly, but Ruby wanted to hold back from that for now. From a practical standpoint, a hiding huntsman would fare better in a raging inferno of blindingly bright fire and distracting plumes of smoke, assuming he found a decent hiding place. Locating him was probably better.

Plus, I'm still the good guy. The village was…something, but I only did that because I had to. If I can avoid starting fires that might spread throughout the countryside, I will.

I'm still a good person. I can be.

There was no trail so far. Ruby supposed that made sense; a huntsman didn't live to a ripe old age if he wasn't extremely experienced at surviving in the field. Pickerel would probably have a few tricks up his sleeve.

Fortunately, so do I.

"Check," Ruby said into her earpiece.

There was a moment of static, and then Watts' cold voice fed into her ear. "No sign of our mutual friend quite yet. I shall make you aware if that changes."

Despite the fact that Watts could only hear her, Ruby nodded.

If he was using Dust and chose to stop using it halfway through the forest, that means he saw us in the airship coming after him at some point. Watts is keeping a lookout from the sky, so he's either hiding somewhere nearby or has somehow gotten past us without being seen. Either could be true, and there's no telling if he's got some overpowered semblance to help him. I'm going to need to do something to draw him out.

There was nothing that could scare him out; if Ruby summoned a bajillion Grimm or something, he would just stay hidden (assuming that what was going on here). Watts could bombard the place from orbit, but if Ruby wasn't able to find a body, she'd never be able to stop searching.

What would make a huntsman come out of hiding?

"Watts."

"Miss Rose?"

"Can you reach Salem? Or a Seer? I need a Grimm."

Watts wasn't sure what Rose would be able to accomplish with the aid of a single Grimm that she couldn't accomplish using her awesome powers, but it wasn't his place to question the golden child of Salem herself.

"I have the means to contact what is left of Evernight, true. Her grace may remotely dispatch a nearby creature of Grimm to your aid, if you –"

"No. Don't have it aid me. Also, I'm gonna need you to fly off."

That wasn't what Watts wanted to hear. Salem might have assigned him to this mission due to Tyrian's absence, but a perfectionist like him preferred to believe that she wished for his devotion to the thorough completion of her goals. He was here to ensure Rose didn't flounder at a critical moment and free the huntsman as she had before.

That much was obvious, though he knew her grace would hear not a word of it (which was precisely the reason he had yet to inform her of this development). Even if he had proof, he had little to gain by exposing her, and the temper tantrum the 'goddess' would throw could very well lead to his death.

Watts, Cinder, and Tyrian were all motivated by the same thing – selfish pursuit of their own goals. All three knew this and took no shame in it; it was how the smart conducted themselves. Rose, on the other hand, was an idealist and sought to rewrite the frameworks of society and its huntsman-centric viewpoint, much like Hazel had…rather, much like Hazel claimed to have had. She might have aligned herself with Salem, but it was out of a fundamentally flawed belief that Salem was somehow a force for right.

As if. There was no 'right.' And that was the crux of Watts' current issue – Rose would see killing the huntsman as unethical and fail to do so. She had already shown an unwillingness to make the smart choice in Hibernance without his incessant prompting. Rose was the type to ignore the larger picture and make every decision based on what she felt at the moment.

Such would not do; Watts refused to fail a mission, and he was not fain to place his own head on the chopping block in the event that Pickerel eventually resurfaced years later despite Watts and Rose having 'killed him.'

"Rose, I must insist on remaining nearby, to assist you if –"

"We won't catch him if you're hovering overhead," she said through the short-ranged radio. "Just leave me, and I'll bring you his head. Promise."

His head…

That might change things. If Rose guaranteed a corpse, Watts could hold her to that. Empty promises and false words meant nothing, but evidence did not lie.

And if she fails to produce it, I shall know our huntsman remains at large.

"Very well. But bring back his remains…it will be useful in putting our queen at ease. I shall dispatch your Grimm and depart for one hour. Shall this be propitious to a successful capture?"

There was no reply for a moment. Watts waited patiently for her to finish whatever words she was preparing, but they never came.

"Rose?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I nodded and thought we were done talking."

At her current skill level, Ruby could easily smush a Beringel into a fine gorilla-flavored paste. There were so many ways she could accomplish this simple task. She could hook Crescent around its legs, topple it down with a high impact gunshot, and behead it while it was down. Or, alternatively, she could freeze it in place with a blast of Summer maiden enhanced ice, then shatter it with a concussive burst of pressurized air. Why, she could even jump into its enclosure and get it shot by a zookeeper because we can't have nice things.

Sadly, none of these easy methods were to be, as Ruby needed to get her butt kicked by this oversized monkey. It was currently pounding her like a cake, and she wasn't sure how much longer she was going to be able to last like this.

That's a lie. I could keep this kind of fight up for the rest of the evening if I wanted to, given my aura level and maiden powers. That said, I will have to wrap this up soon. If I do end up fighting for the rest of the evening, it'll be pretty obvious we're faking.

If Pickerel didn't come out to save her, she would just try the same thing in the next forest over. It wasn't foolproof, but it was the best she could do at the moment short of a forest fire.

The Beringel roared with manufactured rage and pummeled Ruby against a tree. She put up a weak defense against it by blocking its fist with Crescent (the real Ruby would know that it would be better to dodge), but it was too much, and her aura fluttered wildly as her weapon was driven out of her hands. Ruby Rose was beaten.

And help wasn't coming.

Ummm…

Well, she could try it for a little bit longer before giving up. Ruby rolled out of the way before the behemoth crushed her and got up to run away.

"HELP! PLEASE!" she screamed. "SOMEONE, ANYONE, PLEASE!"

Speaking was a calculated risk, because doing so in the middle of nowhere might reveal that she was expecting someone to be around despite her apparent isolation. Still, if her target heard her pleas, he would most likely help rather than ponder the logic behind her decisions.

"NO!" Ruby screamed as the Beringel's sweeping paw knocked her off her feet and began to drag her back towards it.

That was the basis of her plan: taking advantage of her prior mistake. She'd freed Pickerel, so he would still be thinking of her as being on 'his' side.

And she was. He was on humanity's side, and he needed to die to ensure the maximum chances of survival for the most people, so she was on his side by killing him.

How fucked up am I, for even thinking that?

But despite her awareness of her own flawed justifications, Ruby couldn't bring herself to back out of this plan.

There was a good chance that he would have wondered what a normal teenager was doing in Salem's castle and piece together that she was (apparently) a villain, but if he was that logical, he would probably justify her fighting the Grimm as proof of her having defected and run away, only to be chased down by Salem's vengeful beasts.

The Beringel was now choking Ruby to death; truly a tragic end to her story. Crescent had been lost in her pitiful attempt to flee, and she was out of options.

"…hhh….lp…m-m…"

The weakened groan must've done the trick, for a noise came from behind the Beringel. Both Ruby and her Grimm adversary looked in the direction of the sound, only to see empty space there.

"YAAAAA!"

A boot slammed out of nowhere into the Grimm's face, knocking it back and releasing its hold on Ruby. Pickerel, who now looked far more composed than the screaming man she'd seen in Tyrian's chamber, landed from his attack in a handstand. He rotated his entire body by 180 degrees and pushed off the ground, kicking his feet into the Beringel's stomach.

The monster's back made a vicious cracking sound, and it slumped over. As its body started to fade, the huntsman who'd slain it brushed a dirty hand over his nose.

"Dust-woven boots. They never think to take 'em off ya when they search ya." He turned back to face Ruby. "Fancy seei–"

Crescent Rose's flat collided with his forehead.

Some huntsman, Ruby thought. To let his aura down in the presence of an enemy…I'm amazed he was this much of a thorn in Salem's side.

The body didn't move, but Ruby could see that he was still alive by the motion his breathing caused in and around his chest.

I'm not being fair. He thought I was an ally. It's not his survival instincts I should be criticizing but his judgment of character, and I think that says more about me than it does him.

Ruby tapped him with her boot, then zoomed back immediately. She refused to fall for the old 'pretending to be unconscious' trick. Once she'd waited a suitable amount of time, she dashed back over to his body and bound his hands and feet with a metallized rope she'd brought. A simple strip of cloth was inserted into his mouth to muffle any cries for help and, just to be absolutely sure, Ruby took his shoes off.

If he had to die, it was going to be like Winter. He would get to know that he died for an important reason, not just for Ruby's kicks.

"I hope you wake up soon," Ruby said. "I can't wait for this to be over."

She couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"You know, I meant hunting you when I said 'this,' but the sentiment also applies to this mission overall. It's horrible, living like this. You see, I expected this to be an event. It was to be something I did for a set amount of time and then came back from and moved on. Like…uh, like a field trip that came and went. But it's starting to seem like there's no clear end in sight, and I'm starting to see it change me. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that I won't be able to look back at this as an isolated incident, but as a real significant portion of my whole life. It won't be 'the one time I went to Evernight' but that 'my time spent at Evernight.'"

It felt good to talk it all out. Pickerel was down and couldn't glare at her, vilify her, call her out for her shortcomings, or look into Ruby's eyes with disappointment and shame. Ruby needed this; she needed the simplicity of this exchange. Having someone to talk to made all the difference in the world.

"And the worst part is, I'm only fifteen. I'm supposed to be doing kid stuff, but instead I'm working with humanity's sworn enemy and hurting innocent people. This is gonna psychologically affect me or something, probably. And speaking of my age, what am I even doing? Like, seriously, what is going on here? I've had to make so many split-second decisions that have major consequences for so many people, and I'm not qualified to make them at all! Ozpin and Goodwitch gave me a mission, and I've been mostly going off of that, but I'm almost certain they would be telling me to back out and cut my losses at this point if I could even talk to them. But I'm not entirely certain, and since they hold the power to let me back into society by exonerating me, I have to do their original mission just to be sure I don't lose them.

"Look at me. I'm despicable, going on about how I need to re-enter society and move on, as though my crimes aren't just getting worse and worse. How selfish can I be?"

Ruby threw her arms up in disgust, nearly hitting the plain black bird as it flew down from the sky to land inches away from Pickerel's head.

"I'm a killer, Mr. Pickerel. I killed my uncle and Ozpin and Winter and Hazel and those people just now, and I watched the deaths of so many others without doing a damned thing to stop it. I'm also a coward – I didn't know that Raven was the Spring maiden when I approached her. No, I only did that because I thought she might comfort me. I jeopardized everything because I wanted a lifeline. And speaking of jeopardizing everything, that brings me to my last point – I'm a hypocrite! What right do I have to choose to save you, only to go back and destroy an entire village in the name of keeping my true motives hidden from Salem? How is it fair?"

The unconscious huntsman had no answer.

"I'll tell you how fair that is – it's not fair at all! I was a baby who couldn't bring herself to listen to you dying, and then I was an even bigger baby by not choosing to stand up to Watts and Uncle Qrow when they told me to burn those people. Oh Dust, they made me burn them all alive, and…no. No, they didn't do that. I did that. I did that when I chose to free you. I need to take responsibility for my choices, not hoist it onto specters or onlookers."

Ruby held Crescent Rose a little tighter to her chest. Despite having lost much of its comforting aura when it had been the firearm by which Qrow died, it now felt a lot more reassuring to touch. The innate wrongness stored within the blade felt…diminished, by comparison.

"I have to kill you, so that I never get ordered to burn down an entire village again. You'll get that when I…you'll understand when…"

Qrow laughed out loud. It wasn't a funny, happy chuckle but a rich laugh of someone who had just heard the stupidest thing in their l̶i̶f̶e̶ death and was now waiting for the person who said it to wise up to their own bullshit.

Ruby tried to ignore him.

She failed.

"No, you won't," she admitted. "Qrow's right; you won't understand why I need to do this. You won't understand why any person you meet, even if you don't tell them about Salem, will die. There's no purpose to telling you anything; I was just doing that so I could feel better about myself. It was a child's delusion – a desperate attempt to pretend that your death won't be as horrible if I spill my guts to you before I spill your guts."

She didn't need to tell him about anything. She didn't need him to understand why his death was necessary to prevent him from endangering others by his mere presence. She didn't need to wait until he woke up.

"It's not like it matters, in the long run. I'd just tell you and then kill you, and even if you did somehow magically understand everything I'm going through, that knowledge would just fade away when you die."

With no regard for the huntsman's safety, Qrow began to peck at his face. If he wasn't careful, he could put one of the man's eyes out.

…but that wouldn't matter, either. He would be blinded for his short time left on Remnant, and then he would die. Just as it didn't matter if he received a grand revelation about Ruby's all-encompassing mission before his death, it didn't matter if he received more pain. Ruby could do this as slow as she wanted to, if she had such a desire. Cut his limbs, empty his eye sockets, wrap his veins around his body in a coat…

He'd just be dead at the end of it. It's no better or worse.

"I should've just let Tyrian torture you to death. Why did you have to scream? Why did you have to…"

She was wasting time. Watts was waiting for her.

"Don't fret, kiddo," Qrow said, leaving the body and hopping over to Ruby. "If there's one thing I know, it's that a –"

"SHUT UP!"

Ruby kicked Qrow right in his stupid face, breaking the tiny bird's body in a single kick. With the damage her foot had inflicted upon him, he wasn't going to be flying anytime soon.

Qrow limply tried to pick himself up, but his legs were disfigured and bent at odd angles. "Ruby! Ruby, no, wai–"

Crescent Rose cut Qrow's head clean off. Much like the Beringel, he simply ceased to exist.

Pickerel.

She couldn't forget what she came here for.

He was supposed to die at Tyrian's hands, but Ruby had saved him. Now, he was about to die just the same, and the only difference that her choice to free him from the torture had made was burning up an entire village. Helping him had been an act of evil. He needed to die before he could endanger anyone else.

Ruby took three steps towards the unconscious huntsman, stopped, and swiftly beheaded him.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Return

And now, some tips from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #439 – Run out of free space on your computer? Not my fucking problem. Drink the bleach from last chapter.

Ruby's Tip #222 – Killing ants with a magnifying glass? Try killing yourself instead, you little shit.

Ruby's Tip #119 – Having trouble finding a new stamp for your stamp collection? Try asking a friend to stamp your throat with their boot if you're that much of a loser that you consider that a problem.

Author's Notes

Ruby murdering her own hallucination is hard as fuck. Probably one of my top two favorite dark moments in this fic, the other being Ruby trying to justify herself only to realize Winter's already dead.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!