Author's Notes

A lot of people have been expressing a wide breadth of emotions in response to the first and second chapter - among them, most of all, shock at Qrow's death. They say things like:

"What the fuck

Seriously what the actual fuck"

and

"This is a plan that is never going to fucking work."

and

"DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO KILL MY BOI LIKE THAT!?"

and

"*Sees tags* Fuck."

To all these fine folks in various states of dismay at how hard this fic started, I say to you this and only this: You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 3 – Ruby's Cover

Ruby wanted to change her mind.

Ruby wanted to go back and say 'no.'

Ruby wanted to turn back time and tell Miss Goodwitch that she wasn't going to be able to do it.

Ruby wanted so much, but she wasn't going to be getting any of it.

The worst part was, she didn't need a time machine to get out of this. She could easily just explain to the professor that she'd changed her mind upon hearing exactly how she'd be expected to garner Salem's interest in her, but she didn't. She couldn't. Rather, she felt like she couldn't, even though she easily could.

It was now 7am, when all of the students of Beacon had had enough time to shower, get dressed, and make their way to the cafeteria, where Ruby currently sat waiting, for some breakfast before their first classes started at 8am. They were essential for this part of his plan, because with so many witnesses, it would be inevitable that the rumors of her actions would somehow trickle their way to Salem's ears. Ruby was going to be dangling herself in front of the evil witch and counting on the fact that what she had done and was about to do would be enough to prove to Salem that she was worthy to be an evil minion.

The plan made sense. Ruby understood each and every aspect of it. The issue would be in whether or not she would be able to pull it off without collapsing into a heap and crying herself into oblivion.

The only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that this would make Uncle Qrow's death mean something. If she gave up now, he would have died because of an accident. He would get a funeral attended by a teary-eyed niece, a nice burial in Patch next to Mom, and a meaningless end to his story. On the other hand, if Ruby went the rest of the way and got the precious maiden powers, his untimely demise would become a part of stopping Salem. Ruby liked to think that he would've appreciated that.

Appreciate his death – what a joke. He would hate me for killing him if he were here.

Ruby forced herself to exhale.

I know that's not true. Qrow would do everything in his power to try and console me. When I unlocked my semblance and headbutted him in the stomach at superspeed, he took me out to ice cream just so I didn't feel as bad about accidentally hurting him. He always tried to make me feel better when I was down, and I know for a fact that he wouldn't have held an accident against me.

Knowing that didn't make the guilt go away.

The sounds of voices could be heard from the other side of the doors of the cafeteria. Ruby braced herself for them to open. She knew that Ozpin was going to be among the students, having manufactured some reason to be present today – probably something along the lines of ensuring the new first years had a welcome time on their first day at Beacon. They wouldn't, though, not when they saw Ruby.

The hardest part was knowing that Yang could easily be among the crowd. If she had to see what Ruby was going to do, it would scar her for life. She could just as easily not be with them, but given how poorly Ruby's luck had been going these past few days, Ruby didn't expect the universe to be doing her any favors.

If Yang was among the students, Ruby wouldn't be able to react. She wouldn't be able to flinch. Any weakness, any hesitation, could jeopardize everything about their plans. Miss Goodwitch had drilled the importance of making it believable, and they'd even gone through some exercise where she'd made Ruby practice keeping a straight face as she'd said vividly described some horrible scenarios.

The door handle turned.

"I'm sorry," Ruby whispered to Uncle Qrow's body next to her. "You worked for Ozpin. I hope you understand. I'm so sorry."

The door opened.

"…so old that I can't sit with my charges once in a while," Ozpin said congenially. "Besides, I do need to eat, and Eugene, the head chef of Beacon, makes an excellent breakfast patty melt. That crab Faunus has a gift, I tell you."

Weiss smiled along with the headmaster. She and her teammates had been heading to the canteen for their morning meal when the primary educator at their school had bumped into them on his way to the same place. He had offered to walk with them, and he'd even been so kind as to regale them with some funny stories of his exploits as a teacher and huntsman. They'd actually accumulated quite a crowd among them, as nearly five other teams all had wanted to either hear the headmaster's stories or perhaps just schmooze with the man who decided their grades.

He opened the door to the canteen and stepped through. "Now, if we…oh my Gods!"

At the headmaster's exclamation, Weiss's head, along with the heads of her three teammates, rapidly snapped towards the empty cafeteria.

Except it wasn't empty.

There were two people inside, seated atop a large table at the center of the room. One was that little troublemaker from before, oversized gardening tool and all. Instead of a ratty school uniform, though, she was now clad in an edgy goth outfit with a viciously bright hood and cap. Weiss recalled thinking that the red child had looked like trouble and had taken steps to avoid her altogether, and that instinct had proven most accurate. The immature little beast had not only made a scene over a minor bout of sickness, something Weiss could have easily stomached without incident, but she had somehow managed to get herself kicked out of Beacon before the initiation test had even taken place.

The other person was…

Wait, is that…dried blood?

"Hey Ozpin," said the little rapscallion, a wicked smile on her face. Her voice carried throughout the empty hall. "Have a look at the present I brought you. Only the best for you, and Qrow's supposed to be the best of the best."

She placed a hand on the back of the bloodied man, whose eyes were closed, and pushed forward. He slumped to the floor, and more fresh blood flowed out of his neck.

The little girl spared Weiss and her team a passing glance but focused back on Ozpin after less than a second. "Still think I'm not good enough for Beacon?"

Weiss screamed, but not louder than her blonde partner.

It took every ounce of self-control in Ruby's body not to cringe as she was forced to dump Qrow's corpse aside. Ozpin, his face visible only to her, offered her one final reassuring nod, before steeling it up and pounding his cane into the ground. That was the last genuine expression she was going to be getting from him; from hence forth, the show was on.

Miss Goodwitch had explained the truth to Ruby. Ozpin had something of a rare resurrection semblance, meaning that when he died, it wasn't permanent. Salem knew this, but apparently his death would still be enough proof of Ruby's false evilness to sell the story. She'd briefly worried that it wouldn't be enough, but Miss Goodwitch had explained to Ruby that she wasn't supposed to know that death was little more than a minor delay for Ozpin, so Ruby killing him would cement her cover story.

A reincarnation semblance seemed a little too convenient, but Ruby didn't think that Ozpin was just going to kill himself so casually if he lacked some way to, you know, offset death a little. The way he and his deputy had explained their plan to Ruby was just too natural for it to be some sort of secret deception. Ruby didn't doubt that this was all true, even though she had such a hard to wrapping her mind around all of the magic and maidens.

Yang was screeching her head off, but Ruby knew it would all be for nothing if she ran over to her sister and begged for forgiveness like she so desperately w̶i̶s̶h̶e̶d w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d needed to. She and her team took a few steps forward, but Ozpin blocked them with a hand.

"Students, stand back. Miss Xiao-Long, please get Professor Goodwitch. Miss Schnee, please keep the other students back. I will handle this myself."

A black-bowed student opened her mouth to protest and reached for her sword (one that was kinda super cool looking, but Ruby was too busy to think about that), but Ozpin slammed his cane down into the floor so loud that the floorboards cracked under his mighty impact.

"This is too dangerous for children!" he roared. "Get back, now, all of you!"

As the students ignored Ozpin's orders to disperse (just like Goodwitch had said they would), his cane rotated to face Ruby.

"Miss Rose, please stop. You've gone too far!"

"You should've let me into Beacon," Ruby growled. "It wasn't fair!"

Goodwitch had specifically instructed her to bring up the prior incident when she was sick as much as possible. According to them, the only way this could work is if Salem's spies heard stories of a rabid Beacon candidate who was disillusioned with a system that failed her, and these could only come from the students in front of her if they were spoon-fed an easy to accept explanation for Ruby's 'fall to the darkness.'

It was also important that she not oversell it, lest someone see through it for the act it was. Ruby had been schooled to carefully balance how dramatic she made this entire thing seem.

"We can still fix this, Miss Rose. Put down your scythe."

"It's too late, Ozpin," she said, baring her teeth like a maniac. "Too late for Qrow, and too late for you. This is what you get!"

Ruby surged forward, going straight for Ozpin's center of mass. The headmaster blocked Crescent with his cane, but Ruby let out a shot to pull her scythe backwards at rapid speeds. The sudden motion knocked Ozpin off balance, and he stumbled forward slightly.

This was a much easier show to fake. Ruby knew how to fight, and she knew how to spar. This one was going to be a real fight. To make it look real, Ozpin was going to need to fight back with everything he had.

He was crippled in one leg, which would make it believable that a child could triumph over him, especially since Ruby was a combat prodigy. The other kids believed her good enough to enter Beacon at fifteen for facing off against pro-hunter level opponents and emerging victorious.

Ruby gave up two steps of ground to allow herself an opportunity to catch Ozpin on the arm when he went in too deep with his cane. It was to her benefit to ensure the fight remained in motion at all times, for if it remained stationary, some of those other kids might have been tempted to step in if they thought they saw an opportunity to help the headmaster out.

Ozpin kept up his aggressive push against her, and they locked blades for a moment (well, they locked canes and snipers).

"All this for a test?" he bellowed. "You murdered your own uncle for a damned test?"

That garnered some gasps from the crowd of onlookers, and Ruby had to bite down on her tongue to keep herself from slipping. She could see what he was doing in his eyes – faking anger that would make him sloppy and enable one to reasonably explain his loss to a fifteen-year-old. Ruby needed to capitalize on that.

"Uncle? More like druncle."

Ozpin pressed forward in their bladelock with a disgusted grunt, and Ruby kicked into his knee. He never would have offered her that opportunity in a real fight, and her tiny little boot would never have done much, but this was playacting, and Ozpin slipped to the ground.

Ruby slipped behind him and brought Crescent up to draw a slash across the back of his, tearing open his dark black jacket and sending ripples through his aura. It helped that Ruby got to turn around when she did it, because she didn't have to see whatever Yang's reaction would have been.

It wasn't all roses and gravy for Ruby, though. Ozpin caught her scythe with his bare hand when she brought it down a second time and pulled her into a fist that caught her face. Ruby was thrown across the room while the headmaster stood back up.

This was the kind of fight that would've had boss music in a movie or videogame, some epic orchestral score that belied the tense stakes of their epic duel, but it was eerily silent when neither of the combatants were speaking. None of the students dared raise their voices or whisper to one another, and aside from the occasional clang from Ozpin's cane or gunshot from Crescent, there was little to no sound.

Ruby broke the silence, wiping blood for her lip. "You're not that tough. I heard you were supposed to be the best, but you're not so tough. Qrow was worth more than you ever were."

In hindsight, she should've said 'tougher' instead of 'worth more,' but it was too late to go back and change it. She wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to be saying, so a lot of her words sounded sort of contradictory when she thought on them after the fact. There was no script, just a general set of guidelines from Goodwitch for the sort of villainous phrases that a real killer would use, as opposed to the kind from slasher movies.

Yang cried out. "Ruby, sto–"

"Miss Xiao-Long!" Ozpin nearly screamed. "Get Miss Goodwitch! Tell her to call in the police and other huntsman!"

She didn't do it immediately, so Ozpin turned to face her briefly. "Do it now!"

Ruby took the opportunity he'd given her to yell out a manic war cry and charge straight into Ozpin's stomach with the top of her scythe at semblance speeds. The impact of the blow sent him flying out a cafeteria window, and Ruby had to race after him to keep up, lest she lose sight of her enemy.

As soon as she dove through the shattered frame, a spray of flicked blood from one of Ozpin's wounds caught her in the eye, and she lost her footing. Deprived of her vision briefly, she didn't know what was coming and felt a surge of panic.

I need to win this.

She rubbed her eyes to get the blood away, but Ozpin's footfalls as he raced towards her (presumably cane first) could be heard. It wasn't enough to detect where he was, and Ruby was still discombobulated from the decent punch he'd gotten on her before.

I can't lose. I can't! What would a real lunatic do?

Ruby couldn't fake anger, but she could remember what she'd wanted to do yesterday when she'd seen the Beacon students leaving to their initiation test. It was an impulse she never would have acted on, not in a million years, but these were exceptional circumstances.

They're all hunters. They have aura.

Ruby swung Crescent all over the place and opened fire wildly, not caring who she hit.

"You've truly lost yourself," Ozpin said, the anger in his sounding real enough to convince Ruby. If she hadn't known this was all his idea, she might've recoiled at the bite. "I thought you a promising huntress once, but now I see you're little more than an arrogant child."

"An arrogant child who's going to kill you dead," Ruby spat back, cutting Ozpin across the leg as she ducked a cane strike. He was missing more and more of his hits, faking but not really faking his strength being drained from his due to the litany of injuries she'd inflicted that piled up over time. Ruby could tell it was time to bring it home. If he began to slow down enough, the other students would intervene. She was going to have to cut through the rest of his aura and land the killing blow in one swift motion, then get out of here. Her speed semblance would help with the last part, but the first two elements of her plan made her sick to her stomach.

Just pretend he's a Grimm, she reasoned to herself. Treat him like a big, tanky Ursa that needs to be brought down.

Ruby threw the last remnants of her stamina into a relentless salvo of slashes and stabs, doing everything she could to not spare Ozpin a single second to recover. It was odd, feeling that not assaulting him to the fullest of her ability would be betraying him.

He's a big Ursa bothering our cabin, and I need to finish him off.

Ozpin's token defense failed as soon as she managed to slice his cane hand off. There was grunt of pain from the elderly man, but he held himself together well in spite of being cut apart. It was enough to make Ruby think that he truly had died before.

I've killed so many Ursai before. What's one more?

The other students had trickled outside of the cafeteria, and Ruby could hear horrified noises coming from their way as she stood atop Ozpin's dying body and continued to hack her back into the sides of his chest. She could imagine them covering their mouths in horror as the kindly old headmaster was ruthlessly subjected to a razor-sharp scythe's business end. In and out, it went, again and again.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, allowing herself that one comforting gesture of genuine emotion before she plastered the vicious smile of victorious bloodlust back over her face. "Now just die!"

Ozpin was already dead when she took his head off.

Ruby fell to her knees and let out a real scream of her rage. The crowd of students behind her were crying, shouting, yelling, declaring her a monster, but Ruby couldn't hear them over her own agonized wail.

When a hand touched her shoulder, she didn't even see who it was. It could've been Yang, seeking to offer her sister some final comfort before snapping her neck in vengeance for the death of her uncle. It could've been Professor Goodwitch, now Headmistress following the death of her predecessor, about to prompt Ruby to run off like they had discussed. It could've been some nobody. Maybe it was the black-bowed girl who was so ready to engage the violent criminal and bring her to justice. Maybe it was Yang's smug-looking partner, whose plain loathing of Ruby was replaced by bodily revulsion when she saw Qrow's body.

The butt of Crescent slammed into where she imagined the unseen figures stomach would be, eliciting a brief yelp of pain. Ruby zoomed off in the direction of the treeline with a final flurry of petals, leaving behind her hopes and dreams of being a huntress with her uncle and Ozpin's bodies.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Recruitment

And now, some tips from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #495 – Stressed about the possibility of losing your job? Marry your boss' mother. It's highly unlikely that they will fire their new step-parent.

Ruby's Note – Does not work for the self-employed.

Ruby's Tip #811 – Having trouble finding a hobby? Compile a list of every action or event that made you smile in the past month. Congratulations, you just found your newest hobby – compiling lists.

Ruby's Tip #43 – Whenever you go backpacking, pack a nice juicy steak, in case you run into a cougar, bear, or other large carnivore. That way, you can enjoy a delicious last meal before getting mauled to death.

Author's Notes

And that's how Ruby buys a little more trust. It would be absurd to assume that Salem and her folks would just pick up someone working for the enemy, but if that someone had visibly and publicly had a breakdown in which she was seen killing two of Salem's greatest foes, it might go a little further to justify hiring Ruby as a goon.

Ozpin might be thrusting responsibility onto a little kid, but at least he's willing to pay the price himself for his own outlandish plan.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!