Chapter 34 – Ruby's First Kill

It was Ruby whose aura broke.

No…no…

The Summer maiden cracked her own neck both ways and roughly shoved the smaller woman off of her back. Her body was covered in blood, but none of it was her own.

I took so many risks that I shouldn't have. Really, for all that I blame Ozpin, this was my fault that I'm here in this situation right now more than his.

But was that a problem? 'Here in this situation right' now meant dying. Meant release.

"You fight like an animal, child," said the Summer maiden. "I'd fear the day you became a maiden if this was what you could accomplish on your own."

Ruby tried to say something, but all she could do was spit out a wad of blood. It probably looked like some sort of final display of defiance to the maiden who was now retrieving her pitchfork, but Ruby had actually been about to beg for mercy if she still had her voice.

"My convictions were stronger than yours, and I claim victory," said the older woman, digging out Original Sin from an elevated pile of sand. "But you didn't fail. Failure is not giving it your all, not living up to your potential. You pushed yourself as hard as you could – a warrior can always tell – and for that, you have my respect. The family member of yours that you killed, Qreed, would be proud."

Qrow…Qrow, I'm sorry it was all for nothing…

Her brain knew that using one hand to try and grip onto loose sand in a desperate attempt to crawl away was futile, but there was something so immensely satisfying about trying. Everyone always imagined that they would bravely face death with a rebellious smile, but when the prospect of becoming nothing actually became an imminent threat, all confidence died an ugly death. What Ruby wouldn't have given for just a few more days with her family…

The pitchfork's two prongs tapped Ruby in her throat again, much like that had earlier tonight. This time, though, they punctured her skin and drew a thin trickle of blood.

"If there was one thing I –"

Ruby flung the sand that was in her hand into the maiden's eyes. Lìxià grunted in surprise and instinctively took a step back, giving Ruby a chance to raise her leg and kick in into the woman's kneecap. Again and again, her boot slammed against the temporarily blinded maiden's joint, until there was a loud cracking noise.

The crack was Ruby's leg breaking.

"Nrrrrauauuueeegh!"

It had been like kicking against a brick wall, and Ruby was unused to how weak she was without aura. In her desperation to buy just another second of time, Ruby had gone too far, and her only reward was getting to die with even more pain.

Lìxià, still covering her eyes with her hand, splayed out a few fingers on the hand that held her pitchfork. A perfect sphere of water rose out of the lake, losing occasional drops and squirts of inconsequential volume here and there as it floated towards and encompassed her head. The maiden's shoulders sagged as the water cleared away Ruby's pocket sand. From her lack of reaction, Ruby guessed that she hadn't even felt the kicks.

The sun had risen entirely now, its entire mass finally above the horizon. Ruby took one last look at it as tears filled her eyes.

It had been the dead of night when she'd left to find the maiden, she'd spent much of the time before dawn walking up the last leg of the mountain. Thus, she'd assumed that even if Hazel and Tyrian woke up and realized what had happened, the time it would take them to catch up would be enough to give Ruby a moment of privacy with the Summer maiden. Back when Ruby thought there was still a chance of Lìxià peacefully handing over her powers, that would have been necessary.

She was proven right – the two men were too far behind to reasonably catch up. Neither of them showed up for the entire duration of the fight, even though she could have desperately used their aid right about now.

But she had forgotten that the hound could fly.

Ruby instinctually wanted to turn away. The sight of blood didn't typically bother her, but never before had she seen such a gruesome scene. Well, maybe Uncle Qrow's death, and Ozpin's too, but she'd gone into shock after those and then immediately been taken away from or fled those scenes. This time, she got an eyeful of everything, and because Lìxià was the maiden, Ruby wasn't allowed to look away. Turning her eyes from an enemy who still drew breath was a cardinal sin in the battle.

Her hound was amazingly still, despite the arm in its mouth. Ruby had no idea what orders Hazel and Tyrian had given it, but it seemed to understand that its objective was to impair the maiden without killing her. The two men clearly kept their heads in the game. With its job complete, the hound was now patiently seated on the hot ground as blood dripped down the front of its snout and pooled up in the sand.

Lìxià's aura was gone and her body disabled. There was blood hemorrhaging out of the ripped flesh as her shoulder, meaning that Ruby had to do this quickly before she passed on.

This was the task that Grubbie had been formed for, and he knew instinctively how to do it. Ruby just let him take the lead and watched.

Halfway burrowed into her hand, he began to emanate a faint golden glow, the same shade as pee when Ruby hadn't drunk water in a long time. His mandibles spread apart, and he spit/vomited up some sort of black stringy fibers across Lìxià's face. The maiden was struggling as furiously as one who had been literally disarmed could, but the fight had left her body when the hound had dropped out of the sky and sank its fangs into her shoulder. Ruby could tell by the look in her eyes that this sudden upset had infuriated her, and she would have slit her own throat if she had the means just to avoid the transfer from going through.

She can tell the hound of my false loyalties if she wished, but only after she's already lost the power and her mouth isn't covered in beetle snot. At that point, it's up to her if she chooses to value her own spite over my own missions.

Ruby had best not risk it.

"Fly down to the others," Ruby said to the seated beast. "Show them the arm. They'll know."

"Fly down. Show." It nodded, and Ruby turned back to Lìxià as the sound of its Grimm body snapping apart to reform itself into a winged creature reverberated through the summit.

The fibers coming out of Grubbie, which Ruby might have described as Grimm spiderwebs if Grubbie weren't clearly a beetle, were pulsating infrequently like the strings of a guitar. Lìxià's eyes began to burn, and Ruby braced herself for the maiden powers to activate in some last-ditch form of self-defense, but nothing came.

The hound was gone now, flapping off into the distance in the direction that it and Ruby had come from. Two dark black circles with red outlines appeared on the ground, one beneath Ruby and the other beneath the maiden whose magic she was draining away. Indescribably, the identical circles began to swap positions rapidly, faster than Ruby's eyes could track. The one beneath Ruby moved to Lìxià, and the one beneath Lìxià appeared at Ruby's feet, and then the reverse, and back again.

Lìxià screamed, and Ruby cringed as her eyes started to close slowly. Grubbie let out a shrill screech that didn't at all sound like the noise of victory, but then again, he was a Grimm and capable of limited vocalizations.

The power – Ruby could feel it entering her body. It was welcome, but it didn't feel welcome. The Summer maiden's strength knew it was being leeched away by a subversion of its natural transference process, and while it couldn't rebel, it could balk.

And still…

It's finally mine. I'm becoming a maiden. This is actually happening.

It had been a dream of Ruby's for so long, and while this wasn't the maiden that would mean an end to her long job, it was a step in the right direction. No, that didn't describe it. This was leaping across the entire field and landing inches away from the finish line.

As the last of the maiden powers were siphoned away from Lìxià and into Ruby, she felt a greater degree of control than ever before. The world around her was hers to command. Her aura or what was left of it expanded rapidly, and the wound Ruby had incurred from the lake's water tendrils began to close up at an accelerated rate. Sand around Ruby's feet began to shake, and some of the rocks grew tiny fractures that didn't stop increasing until they became mighty cracks.

Ruby also had control over Lìxià. The Scarab didn't just grant Ruby the ability to steal a maiden's powers; it had a firm grip on Lìxià's very life energy, and that vitality was now in the palm of Ruby's hand. If she chose to, she could quash it out now and forevermore, or she could return it in full or only partially.

She returned it, of course.

She returned it.

She wanted to.

But then again…

I…what am I saying? Of course I want to let her live. I went through all this effort to spare her. Dust, I risked my life twice so she could keep hers!

But Lìxià had torn Ruby's stomach open. Grubbie was the bridge between the two women, and some innate Grimm instinct in the beetle hissed into her ear that desiring revenge was only natural. Thoughts about ending this woman's life assaulted her mind like whispers coming from every direction all at once. These voices whispered how Lìxià would be empty in life without her mission so doing her in would be a mercy, how she knew too much and couldn't be allowed to live and jeopardize Ruby's mission, how she had lost and was weak and totally deserved what was coming to her, how she had tricked Ruby into going on a mission she didn't fully understand, how she had forced Ruby to kiss her so that she could get training, how she had dragged her feet in Mistral when they were tracking the Branwens.

The scariest part was that these whispers were all in Ruby's own voice.

I can't kill her. It isn't right.

The spirit of Lìxià, now completely distinct from any ancient magicks, was in the palm of Ruby's hand. Grubbie had no hold over it. It was all up to Ruby.

All it would take was a simple choice to sever the bond, and it would be over. The life had already been taken, and Lìxià was already dead; Ruby was just vacillating over whether to return her soul and reanimate her body.

Just one command.

Just one thought.

Just one thought.

Just do it.

Do it.

Ruby keeled over as Grubbie crawled his tiny body back into her palm face first. Every nerve in her body was shot, and she felt like she could sleep for the next three days if given the option.

The peak of the mountain was a silent place. No winds were there to blow the sands back and forth, and the normal ambient noise of a high-tech city or a forest humming with life was absent.

Lìxià was crying, but it was more from the shock of the transfer than actual sadness. Ruby knew minor first aid, but that sort of thing lost its meaning when she could cauterize the amputation at the shoulder and stem the flow of blood entirely. Losing a limb so brutally could be life-threatening, but when the Summer maiden's…when the former Summer maiden's aura returned to her, her injury would scab over and equilibrate over time.

"I'm sorry about the…yeah."

It felt empty to apologize, but her emotion was genuine. She truly felt bad about this whole thing. Ruby had gotten what she'd wanted – the powers, without costing anyone their life – but her excitement at the success was tempered by an exhausted, overbearing tiredness. She might feel overjoyed later, but right now, she just felt done with it all.

Her powers were fresh, and she might be able to fly all the way back to the base of the mountain if she chose to, but her mind felt like it had just had to suffer through a three-hour written exam.

Lìxià's mouth was moving, and Ruby had to refocus her ears just to hear what was being said.

"…I do?"

Ruby rubbed at her eyes. "Huh?"

"What do I do?" she whimpered. The strong voice that had been entirely sure of itself before the fight now sounded so frail. "Ozpin said…I don't know what to…what do I do now?"

She's spent decades up here training for this one thing, and then I come up and beat her on my first try. Now she's down an arm, but worse than that, she's down a purpose in life.

"If it makes you feel any better, I was telling the truth," Ruby explained, crouching in front of the prone woman. "I really do work for the good guys, and I intend to use this power to protect, not to destroy. I have nothing to gain by lying to you anym– hey!"

All Ruby had to do to avoid the weak slap was lean back. It seemed as though their positions from before had been completely reversed; now, she was the unstoppable figure looming overhead, and her maiden-predecessor was the limp body that couldn't raise a firm hand its own defense.

"I don't care about that, about any of that!" Lìxià coughed. Though her body was broken, some of her fierce spirit from before had returned. "What you do with the power means nothing to me. Ozpin gave me this job. When I became the maiden, he told me that the most important thing I could do in my life was to protect the magic with everything I had. Now that that's done…there's nothing for me. I may as well just die."

Ruby let out a breath and cringed. As tired as she was, this was something she had to resolve here and now. If Lìxià killed herself, that would be bad or something, probably.

"You can enjoy your life."

"What life?"

She sat up, and her head turned around, gazing about the plateau with its spartan cabin, its small lake, and its miniscule crop farm (much of which was ruined from the fight). Ruby winced at that.

"I have no life. I never enjoyed being up here, but it was what I was meant to do, what Ozpin told me to do. How am I supposed to pretend I like wasting away up here without that?"

"No one's telling you to stay here," Ruby said. "Vacuo accepts all comers, and you could probably get into any kingdom except Atlas even without a passport. There's a whole life out there for you. You could find a new purpose – helping others, raising a family, living in comfort. Any of those things."

"Why?" Lìxià asked, her empty eyes falling down to Ruby's feet. "What's the point?"

Ruby sighed. This was a woman who'd spent a good portion of her life as a hermit atop a lonely mountain on the word of a man who she hadn't seen in twenty years. Ruby's reasoning meant nothing to her because her own view of the world was entirely different, and her values were so skewed that none of what Ruby could offer her would replace her emptiness.

It was an emptiness born of being completely and utterly directionless. An emptiness not unlike the blank feeling Ruby had experienced when her uncle died, and Ruby remembered what had dragged her out of her own mind.

Ozpin gave me a mission. He didn't ruin my life; he took my already ruined life and did the best he could to repair it. I bitch and moan about how much I hate him, but he was trying to save me.

She had been unfair to him in her thoughts, she now realized. It wasn't Ozpin's fault that Qrow had died, but it was Ozpin's loss, and instead of blaming the girl who'd deprived him of his ally and friend, he had been kind enough to lay down his own life so that she could have something to do, something to distract her from the guilt and pain of failure, something to fill the hole in her life.

Ruby decided to pay it forward.

"Lìxià."

The woman's head turned upwards.

"I am the Summer maiden. And I am telling you to become a huntress."

Her expression sank at Ruby's declaration, and her eyes began to fall back down to the ground. Before they could, Ruby gripped her by her hair and harshly yanked upwards, forcing the woman to face her eye-to-eye.

"Why was hiding away from the world so important? Just because Ozpin told you to, and he was a headmaster? Well, I'm a fucking maiden, so on a grand scale, my word is worth more his, and I'm telling you this: you can find a new purpose. Become a huntress – you already have the skills for it, and your pitchfork should be a good enough weapon to get you started. But don't just become any old huntress. Don't stop until you've become the best huntress in the world. Save more villages than anyone else…at least a hundred. No, two hundred. Find ten children who have no parents and give them shelter and security until they can take care of themselves. Make five hundred thousand lien on bounties for dangerous criminals who pose a threat to public safety, and donate it all to charity. I'm the Summer maiden, and I'm ordering you to do all of these things. Mark my words; this will be what gives you a new purpose. This is my job for you, Lìxià."

For her grand speech, Ruby was rewarded with a ponderous stare. "I…"

"You what? You said it yourself – you hated Ozpin's assignment, and only did it because you thought it was the highest calling you could have in life. Well, you were wrong. Who decides that protecting the maiden powers is meant to be your purpose? Ozpin isn't infallible. Neither am I, but he's dead and I'm still alive. Plus, I completed my assignment, so I have to know more than either you or him. If you were just planning to kill yourself anyways, then just do what I ask, and the Grimm will eventually get the best of you. But I don't think I'm wrong. I think you need a new purpose, so I, as the Summer maiden and probably the best remaining authority in your life, am ordering you to become a huntress and complete my other tasks. And when you finish them, go save four hundred villages, and twenty children, and –"

"A-A new…purpose…"

Ruby nodded.

"I…I accept." The woman was already in a sitting position, but she somehow fell forward into an even lower prostration. "I accept your mission, maiden."

After politely requesting that Lìxià refrain from leaving her mountainous abode until Ruby was long gone (just to ensure Hazel and Tyrian didn't get too close to her), Ruby graciously accepted a to-go meal from the woman. Her farm grew some sort of palm kidney thing or soul of palm or something; Ruby had never heard of it before. It tasted pretty nice, though.

As Ruby munched on the vegetable thing, she let out a tense breath that she'd probably been holding in since the middle of last night, when she'd figured that she would first have to end her first life.

It all worked out. My first kill turned out to be my first spare. My first sparing. My first not-a-kill. Whatever the word is, it was my first that.

Down the side of the mountain she walked. Her maiden powers were slightly in a state of flux; she could use them, but her body was telling her that any strenuous displays of magic would be too much for her. A single fireball? Fine. Making the mountain explode like a volcano? No way, bud.

When I find the others, I can just fly us down to the base of the mountain. My powers should be enough to lift Hazel once I've recovered from the weird effects of the transfer, and the hound can lift Tyrian. It might be uncomfortable for the both of us, but I don't really have the means to carry any water from Lìxià's lake without a vessel.

Then, the most curious thing happened.

As though her thoughts had been answered by divine intervention, a canteen landed at her feet. She had been so focused on eating her palm sticks that she didn't even see where it came from. Ruby knelt down briefly to pick it up.

That's weird. And it's all squished up.

Wait, isn't this mine? It looks just like the one that I dumped into the dirt. A-And Hazel crushed it before he dropped it on the –

"Hello," said a voice. "Riley."

Ruby looked up to see a white-haired woman who was dressed entirely inappropriately for the weather. The white robes in which she was garbed might have been more than enough to protect her skin from the sand, but she must've been roasting alive in the heat of the desert. It was now mid-morning, and the sun was fully risen. Plus, the colors didn't look authentically Vacuoan at all, not like the outfits Hazel had given Ruby or the toga that Lìxià had worn. The grayish blue and white looked much more…

"Atlesian," Ruby whispered. Her hands reached around to her scythe.

"You remember," the woman said. "You know who I am."

"You followed me? All this way?"

The woman drew a pair of twin swords. "It cost me greatly, but I won't forsake the men and woman, the brothers and sisters that you killed. You are going to pay for your crimes."

So, it was about that, then.

Ruby tried to whip up enough wind beneath her feet to just fly away from this encounter, but it felt like doing so was shattering her leg bones into pieces. She let go in time before the pain could bring her to her knees, but even trying had plainly been a mistake.

"For the murder of eleven soldiers of Atlas, I am placing you under arrest." The Atlesian huntress pointed her left sword, unaware of Ruby's inner turmoil. "You will resist, and I will take great pleasure in terminating you."

"I'm sorry," Ruby said. "About the people. A-Adam was the one who killed them, but that doesn't excuse the hand I had in their deaths. But I swear, I was fighting for my life. They ambushed me and my friend, and I was just trying to get her out alive."

The woman's eyes flared open in anger. "You were robbing Atlas of proprietary technology!"

"Wait, this isn't about the Southeast Convex train that we blew up? Me 'n' the White Fang?"

"No!" Her scowl widened. "Though, if you harmed the brave sons and daughters of Atlas there as well, I shall fight in their name just the same. The business of your death shall be indiscriminate in whose lost lives it avenges. It surprises me little that a criminal like you would have associations with savage Faunus scum."

Ruby racked her brains, but she couldn't remember killing anyone else associated with Atlas. She'd run into them during Ruby's eleven, but her stolen rifle had been set to nonlethal, and she hadn't done any fighting other than that.

"How did you even find me?" Ruby asked. If she could stall for time long enough, she might find it in herself to control the powers of the Summer maiden and muster enough force to skip this fight altogether.

"You aren't as clever as you think, Riley," said the woman, butchering Ruby's name again for some reason. "It was a simple matter of process of elimination. Atlas has no black market, and both Mistral and Vacuo lack the scientific infrastructure to reasonably utilize the stolen catalysts you intend to sell. That leaves Vale as your buyer, but its port security is too tight, especially since Atlas put out an alert for any smuggling operations. However, it would be a trivial matter to smuggle in the catalysts through Vacuo on the other end of Sanus, where border security is nonexistent. To that end, I made contact with some old friends during an operation three years back and put out feelers for any suspicious behavior. Then, lo and behold, an eight-foot-tall man matching the description of your infiltrator was seen purchasing authentic Vacuoan silk shawls, likely for a disguise."

"Hm." Ruby pursed her lips. "Yeah, you kinda got a lot of it wrong. Also, I'm really sorry, but who are you?"

"My name is Winter Schnee," said the woman. "And I shall be the one w–"

"No, but, like, who are you to me? Why are you following me?"

"You humiliated me," said Winter, her voice dropping. "You played me for a fool, and my men died for it."

"Played you for a fool…"

Ruby tapped her chin and racked her brains, but she couldn't for the life of her remember who this lady was.

"Stop mocking me, Riley!"

Ruby sighed in exasperation. "Again, with the thing! Seriously, who are you?"

"I was the one who led you into an ambush!"

Into an ambush…

"Wait, that was a guy," Ruby said. "Sandy brown hair, hunk, some flower pin – and besides, I didn't even kill anyone! No one got hurt!"

A glowing white circle thing appeared beneath Winter, and she lunged forward with the ferocity of an Ursa Major. Ruby managed to dodge the first sword as it swung, but the second just barely clipped her heel before she leapt out of the way.

"Don't lie!" screamed Winter. She tapped one sword onto the ground, creating another glowing circle, and pointed the other at Ruby. A stream of fire exploded from her blade. "Eleven! That many!"

Ruby clapped her hands, calling upon a small fraction of the maiden powers to dispel the air around her and from a vacuum. It acted like a shield, depriving the fire of one of the three necessary components for combustion and extinguishing it before it could hit her. Ruby may not have been a Dust user, but as a huntress aficionado, she had studied the way others expertly manipulated the elements around them, so she knew most of the best ways to do it.

But…what is she saying? Maybe one person might've died from my shooting if they were unlucky and fell down in a way that snapped their neck, but eleven? I'm pretty sure I would've known if that many dudes and dudettes died.

Unless it didn't happen near me. Hazel was fighting people, and Tyrian was surrounded by dead bodies near the end there.

"Look, Winter –"

"DIE!"

Ruby leaned just out of range as the saber nearly cut open her chest.

"Look, Specialist Schnee, I didn't kill those people. My companions did."

"You led the operation! You're the commander!"

"I'm fifte–"

Ruby had been about to use her age as a shield, because in her own head, it made so much more sense for the blame to fall on the mass murderer and the wanted anarchist than on the underage child, but Winter was right. She had been the one in charge of the operation, and so the fault was hers for any who were harmed during it.

Ruby blocked the sabers with Crescent Rose and quickly jolted some electricity through the three metal weapons. Winter's fingertips released the blades as they sparked, prompting the huntress to yelp in pain. Ruby kicked both blades away.

"I didn't kill them, but you're right. Their blood is on my hands."

"You admit it, then."

"I literally just said –" Ruby bit her tongue. "Look. There's more going on here than you understand. Your best option is to just let me go, and –"

Something slammed into Ruby from behind, and she was sent tumbling forward into the Specialist. Evidently, the entire maneuver had been planned in advance, because she had drawn some secondary weapon and thrust it into Ruby's stomach. It didn't pierce her aura, but the sensitive part of her body that had just been stabbed through by Lìxià's water tentacle was hit, and FUCK DID IT HURT!

Ruby screamed and thrashed, and Winter grinned victoriously.

Slamming her fists into the woman, Ruby pushed off. She wasn't trying to inflict any damage, but it gave her enough balance to make another attempt at flight.

Another failed attempt.

Winter's second weapon, which Ruby now could make out as a blunt police-baton-looking rod, snapped against her arm, and Ruby could do nothing to block it.

If I do die, I need to make sure not to think of her, or she'll get the powers. I should think of Cinder instead.

Wait.

No, I should do the opposite. This woman is a good guy, and Cinder's evil. I'm on her side, not the evil people's.

With that thought in her head, Ruby used her semblance to rapidly back off, but when she turned and ran, there was a large white shape in her way. It looked like a Grimm, specifically a North Mistrilian Gryphon variety, but it was as pale as a ghost and half transparent.

"You can make Grimm? That's so unfair!"

Ruby slammed Crescent Rose into the ground and kicked upwards into the air like a pole vaulter. At the apex of her flight, she twirled her entire body and landed a devastating kick to the back of the Grimm, snapping its spine.

…except it had no spine. Ruby had been expecting to hit something hard, and when her foot broke right through the body of the best, there was nothing to stop her momentum. She twirled around three times in an ungainly spin before landing on the ground.

Something glinted in the corner of her eyes, and Ruby had just enough wherewithal to roll out of the way as the saber came down. Its twin blade came next, and Ruby kept rolling, using the incline of the mountain to increase her speed.

As she rolled, she saw white and realized that Winter had created another ghost Grimm, this time an Alpha Beowolf. If she kept rolling downhill, she would wind up right in its awaiting jaws. Between the swords and the Grimm, she was pinned.

She's a real huntress, and I'm just a kid. It would be a miracle if I could – wait!

Recalling that she still had some tricks up her sleeve, Ruby flicked a fireball into the fake Beowolf's face. It wasn't so destructive as to cause it to dissipate away, but it repelled the creature long enough for Ruby to avoid being bitten and slam into its legs instead.

The second she was no longer moving, Ruby threw herself up and fixed her eyes on Winter. She was now cutting her sword through the air, creating a new white circle that had pointy shards of ice sticking out. Ruby saw the attack coming, but the Beowolf behind her grabbed her in a bear hug before she could dodge it.

No! I can't lose!

The ice shot out, and Ruby opened her mouth to spit out a small flame in hopes that it would melt it. Sadly, that wasn't how it worked, and the ice passed right through the fire in the extremely short period of time it was in contact. Ruby's aura took another hit.

I'm still in the yellow because I'm a maiden, but I won't last for long. I need to either run or fight.

The first of those two options sounded better. Ruby drove an elbow into the snout of the Beowolf that was holding her, causing it to release its grip. As it did, Ruby dropped down and zoomed with her semblance –

Straight into a white circle! Her nose nearly broke from the impact, and she felt herself drop into the red. Seriously, was this woman's semblance just the power to do whatever she wanted?

She wasn't going to let Ruby leave. Winter Schnee was trying to kill Ruby, and she was serious about it.

I'm going to have to get serious about it as well.

Winter advanced on Ruby, swords drawn. This was an Atlesian specialist, not a hermit who lived atop a mountain, so Ruby figured she would be a more experienced duelist. Thus, she did the last thing a duelist would expect.

The saber's came down upon Ruby, who blocked them with her bare arms. The aura around her wrists took the hit, but the unexpected move gave Winter pause.

Ruby might've appeared unarmed, but she wasn't. Summoning as much magic as she could without hurting herself, and then summoning even more, she launched drew up as much ambient water as she could, heated it into steam, and blasted it right into Winter's face. It wasn't a single hit, like the fireball, though; this was a continuous stream of boiling-hot moisture, and Winter was unable to protect herself as it seared her skin.

When the magic ran out, Ruby shoved her arms forward, knocked Winter back, and looked about the landscape for Crescent Rose. Her baby had wound up behind her and to the left, just a few feet away. Ruby hoped that the steam had blinded her enemy enough and briefly turned her back to the woman in order to reverse and reclaim her weapon.

It had, but that didn't mean Ruby made the right call. Even with her eyes closed, Winter had the skill of a huntress and the instinct of a Specialist. Just as Ruby was about to grab hold of Crescent Rose, and white barrier appeared in front of her, blocking her hand.

More magic, more pain. This was her first time using powers with which she had no practical experience, and Ruby was drawing energy from parts of her body that weren't meant to be drained away. She was simultaneously both rewarded with power and punished physically. A stiff wind blew against Winter's legs and shot several rocks and stones against her legs. The huntress had her feet knocked out from under her and nearly spun in a full circle with her waist as the axis when she fell.

It was enough to break her concentration on the circle, and Ruby grabbed her hands around Crescent Rose. Flipping up the scythe into a combat stance Ruby turned around and swung. Her first hit clocked Winter right in the head, but her second was blocked.

And her third.

And her next two, one directly after the other.

And her next.

And her next.

Crap! She's a much better swordswoman than I am a scytheswoman!

Winter's eyes were red with veins, having been scorched by Ruby's steam, and it only served to accentuate the anger on her face. She was twirling her swords like there was no tomorrow, doing movements that Ruby could only dream of.

"It's over, Riley! You're going to die!"

I just got the maiden powers! I can't lose them!

And yet…

There was a hint of…there were hints of…

Uncle Qrow's style? Had she sparred against him? If so, every fourth or so attack was something similar to what Ruby had encountered when she was younger and still being trained by her uncle.

A familiar uppercut slipped towards her, and Ruby's instincts took over. There was no time to think, but Ruby had one move in her back pocket that she could do so naturally that she didn't even need to think to use. Cinder's ace-in-the-hole trick, a three-move combo that Ruby had practiced for hours on end back in her first few weeks with Salem. It was a part of Ruby, an inherent part of her that her body could do without her mind having to waste time to comprehend. Ruby let her muscles take over.

Hit number one, to disarm – Ruby managed to block the saber as it was coming up with enough force that it flew right out of Winter's hand. Her other sword was too far away, having been pulled back to counterbalance the uppercut strike.

Hit number two, to break the aura – Ruby smacked the blunted end into Winter's chest with all her might and was rewarded with plain white aura flickering away. Seriously, everything about this woman was white – her pale skin, her hair, her circle semblance, her ghost Grimm, most of her uniform.

The other sword that Winter still held came around from the side, but Ruby kept going with the final swing.

And…

Hit number three! Ruby actually managed to land it!

It was impossible not to let out some sound of victory that came out as a mixture of a grunt and a cheer. She did the combo move and beat a real huntress and won the fight! Oh, Ruby was going to have to bake Cinder so many thank you cookies for having taught her that move. The euphoric feeling of victory was hers, and nothing could take it away. Ruby had won!

It was in that moment of victory that Winter toppled forward, literally landing on Ruby and sliding her torso across Ruby's as she collapsed, and Ruby suddenly remembered that she'd just stabbed her entire scythe through Winter's chest.

"Whuh – no, no, no!" Ruby ripped off her hood and pressed it against the wound, desperate to stop the blood as it flowed out. The euphoria of victory was sapped away instantly, sucked away as though Winter had seized it from Ruby's body through osmosis. "No, please, you can't die!"

"Y-Y…ki…ele…ve…kill…elev …el…"

"No, I didn't mean to!" Ruby's voice broke as she whimpered. "I'm sorry!"

Red had always been Ruby's favorite color, but the sheer volume of blood was enough to make it appear disgusting in her eyes. It was as though all of the sanguinary liquid in Winter's body was escaping at once in a massive exodus of blood.

I-I hit her near her heart. It might actually be all of her blood.

"Oh gods, oh Dust, please stop bleeding!"

Her limited knowledge of first aid wasn't going to be enough here. Ruby basically knew to apply pressure to the wound, and this kind of thing needed a surgeon. Honestly, a team of the world's best surgeons might not have been enough to fix this kind of damage.

Ruby closed her mouth in despair as Winter got paler and paler.

Her lips moved. "…blu…is…fl…"

Blinking a few times, Ruby brushed away her tears. "What was that? W-What is it? Blood flow? Did you say blood flow? Do you know how to fix this?" It was a long shot, but Ruby was willing to take any lifeline right about now. "Can you walk me through healing you? I'll do whatever you need, just tell me what to do."

"…gr…let…ma…"

Ruby's well of hope dried up and caved in on itself. If Winter had the answers of triage, miracles, and medicine buried within, she wasn't able to say them, limited to monosyllabic speech as she was.

But if Winter was still conscious and lucid enough to speak, there might still be time to…

"I-I'm not working for them," Ruby said.

Winter had no response. Her eyes weakly flicked upwards to meet Ruby's, unsure.

"I'm not working for Salem…f-for the bad guys. I'm a double agent."

Ruby swallowed, probably taking some of Winter's blood with her own spit, but her squeamishness was gone, replaced by gut-wrenching terror and guilt. Winter knowing was more important, the most important thing at all right now.

"I'm not evil. I'm trying to undermine them from within and steal what they're really after."

Again, Winter said nothing.

"You didn't die for nothing. You didn't die for nothing, I swear, I promise with all my heart."

She had no idea if this was of any comfort to Winter, but it was what Ruby imagined she herself would want to hear if their roles were reversed.

"We're gonna save the world, and it's all gonna be better then."

The corpse in her arms was already lifeless. Ruby had no idea at what point Winter had died or how much of the final message she'd heard.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Familiar

And now, some tips from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #450 – Help me.

Ruby's Tip #451 – Please.

Author's Notes

That rival didn't last long, did she? Only about four chapters…I guess Winter's pretty good at tracking, but that also proved to be her undoing.

I had to make Ruby's first real kill one that was completely out of her control. Just like meeting Raven, it feels like it's just a mandatory part of the journey. Ruby's foray into killing was something that she didn't want, immediately regretted, and was powerless to stop.

It doesn't feel right that Ruby Rose would willingly kill someone on Salem's orders, cover or not. To me, that's just out of character, even with all of the gaslighting/gatekeeping/girlbossing she's undergone so far. If she'd killed the Summer maiden and turned evil, that wouldn't fit as well in this story as her killing Winter by being a bit too exuberant and accidentally losing perspective for just a moment.

I said before that the Raven encounter would mark the end of Volume 1 if this fic had volumes. This is basically Volume 2's conclusion.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!