Chapter 18 – Ruby's Underling
It would be to Ruby's eternal shame that she only remembered Raven was gunning for everyone, including her dad, after she'd ran about a mile into the forest.
Still, she wasn't yet necessarily out of time, and as much as she might've said otherwise to Goodwitch, she was willing to compromise her mission to protect her family.
"Stay here," she said as she gently set down an injured Cinder. "You can protect yourself from the flames with your semblance."
"No, I can't, my aura is – Ruby, you can't go back!" Cinder screeched. She tried to rise up from the forest floor, but one of her legs looked like it might've taken a decent hit during the fight, and she fell back down. "You can't claim the powers if you're dea–"
It was too late to hear whatever Cinder was saying, because Ruby had already run off. It didn't matter, though – any warning Cinder might've given her about the claiming of the maiden powers was irrelevant, since that wasn't why she was going back.
The village was still aflame when she returned to the outskirts for a peek. It wasn't confidence that brought her back but desperation, so she didn't run headfirst into the meatgrinder.
If I die, Dad dies too. I'm not going to throw my life away. I can still save him and do my mission. I can still have everything.
Her advantage was that Raven wasn't expecting her to return. The villainess would surely be on her guard, but after all that effort Ruby had gone through to escape, she would have to have been a fool to return.
And a fool she was.
This was the second village she seen massacred in the same week, but she wasn't nearly as distraught by this one. Ovais had been her fault, and she'd had the entire airship ride over to worry about it. Here, the town was standing one second and gone the next. It disappeared so rapidly that the sensation was more like thinking she'd just left the town than knowing it was forever destroyed.
There was too much smoke for her to see through from this angle. Ruby sped around to the other side of the village, hoping to get a better view.
Where was he? There was no way Dad had run away in that short time, and Raven had declared any witnesses' lives void, so hiding was probably the answer. That was going to be an issue…
Except this was her dad. Raven might have known him once, but she hadn't lived with him for the past fifteen years.
"DAD!" Ruby called out loudly, knowing that Cinder must've been cringing from afar. "MEET ME BEHIND THE PLACE YANG ACCIDENTALLY LIT ON FIRE WHEN SHE WAS TWELVE!"
The doctor's office. Raven would have no way of knowing that, and assuming that it was still recognizable, that was where Dad would be meeting her. Villages like this tended to have healers or medics, but Dad was surely smart enough to read between the lines.
Ruby sped off, making three full circles around the village to lose any tail she might've had. She recalled having seen the healer's shop when she and Cinder had come in, and it was one of the few places that couldn't directly be seen from the main road of Temeria. It had been a relatively large healer's shop, given that any injured travelers in the nearby area would all congregate here, so it was probable that he'd seen it as well.
The wait was just barely bearable, and Ruby found herself flinching at every creak. As the fires burned, more smoke filled the air, making visibility even worse, but they were slowly running out of fuel as time went on and less unburnt wood remained, meaning that the noise level was going down. That meant that Ruby would be safe as long as she stayed silent, but only if she stayed perfectly silent.
I announced my presence, so Raven knows I'm somewhere here. If I stay put for too long, she'll eventually hunt me down and get me.
C'mon, Dad, hurry!
After some unknown number of minutes that felt like a million but probably wasn't, Ruby poked her head out from behind the healer's shop.
Dad was nowhere to be seen.
Ruby cursed under her breath. Stupid Dad – not listening to her! It was all his fault. It had to be, because the alternative was that she'd left him behind and he'd been…Raven had…stupid Dad! He was really being difficult right now! That idiot!
She took care with each and every step, fearful that it might be her last if it wasn't soft enough. Inching her way around the side so she could peek out at the front door of the shop, she scanned the smoky ruins of a once bright and lively town for her father.
Still nothing – argh! Where was he?
Maybe he really hadn't seen the healer's shop on the way in…that was always a possibility.
Ruby drummed her fingers against her hip as she weighed her options. The longer she spent looking for Dad, the greater the risk there was to Cinder, whose broken aura and failing semblance wouldn't protect her if the forest fire caught up to her. Plus, if Ruby was discovered, there would be no escape for anyone. Raven didn't need to kill her, she just needed to somehow inhibit Ruby's speed semblance, which included inflicting a broken leg or a shattered aura. As long as Ruby couldn't flee her two allies away at lightning speed, the rapidly spreading fires were guaranteed kills on them all.
I won't abandon my dad. If I need to, I can run through the village at superspeed and go over every square inch of ground in less than ten seconds. There's no way Raven would be able to react that fast, let alone catch up to me and hurt me.
The only remaining question was how long Ruby would wait before doing this last ditch maneuver. Dad clearly wasn't coming to her meeting point, and –
Wait. He's hasn't…abandoned me, has he?
It was inconceivable that he'd been killed, but Dad was certainly really upset with Ruby when she'd left. The last thing she could remember was kicking him in the stomach to get him off of her. Was that the straw that broke the Nuckelavee's back?
Had he truly given up on her?
Ruby laughed to herself. Salem's plan to make me go crazy must nearly be working if I'm starting to think stuff like that. Dad would never, ever leave me behind, not in a quadrillion years.
There was no more time to wait. Dad's life was on the line, and Cinder had no means to defend herself back where Ruby had left her. Getting down into a crouching position, Ruby readied herself to zoom around town in the blink of an eye.
Before she launched, something caught her eye.
…close…
Was that writing on the ground?
Yeah, it was! Just in front of the healer's shop, there was a brief message drawn in the soot on the ground. Ruby hid slightly behind her cover as she read the words on the ground.
Her semblance is portals to close friends (me, not you).
Raven won't hurt me. I'll be fine.
Don't trust Salem.
Well, Ruby thought to herself. Those are all some pretty good words of advice.
Flaring up her aura to protect her skin, she turned around and fled into the burning forest.
"Ruby."
Ruby ignored Cinder. There was too much on her mind right now to heed the words of her injured ally. Dad, the Spring maiden, another village being torn down…
"Ruby, you need to put me down. Do you even know where you're running?"
She'd carried them Cinder far for the past half hour. She could carry them a little bit further.
"Ruby, please! My eye…"
She'd found the Spring maiden, and she'd lost her. If her goal was to claim those powers as her own, how was she supposed to when Raven was so good at fighting?
And Dad…Dad probably didn't know what to think. He still cared enough about Ruby to leave her that message (which she now realized he'd probably had to leave to avoid them meeting up and Raven getting the drop on them both). He also hadn't yet lost hope in Ruby being a good person, or he would never have mentioned her worrying about himself being safe.
But he probably thinks I'm working with the enemy.
It's okay, though. It'll all go away when Goodwitch exonerates me and I go home.
"Ruby," Cinder breathed. "Please."
It took all her willpower to slow down. Ruby had to force herself to breathe; that was how choked up her throat was.
When Cinder had been set down, she cleared her throat. "So. This clearly didn't go the way any of us were hoping."
"Ya think?"
Cinder recoiled at the bite in Ruby's normally pleasant tone, and so did Ruby. She was getting far too worked up about this.
I didn't win, but that doesn't mean I can just be angry. In fact, it's the opposite – I'm going to have to be undercover for a lot longer, so I need to maintain my act.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "What's going to happen? What do we do? You know this better than I."
"There's a lot to do. Firstly, we disobeyed Salem's orders, and Watts knows."
"There was no other way to –"
"I know, I know," Cinder said firmly. "But that doesn't change the fact that he will tell our queen, and she will be displeased."
Ruby sighed deeply. Raven's main goal had been to kill minions of Salem and ensure that none saw her use the maiden powers, and throwing a wrench into the second of those had been enough to stall her briefly. It had been the best course of action at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, it would make their lives a lot more difficult. Specifically Cinder's life, since she had been the one to encourage them to come.
I don't regret getting out of there alive, but that doesn't change the fact that I forced myself to interact with Raven, and she'll likely be punished for it.
"You said first. What's the second bit?"
"My cover as a Beacon student. Would you father be in a position to report it?"
Dad was a teacher at Signal. It was unlikely he would be around Beacon very much. Ruby relayed this to Cinder.
"Is it possible he'll go there to report what he saw today?" she asked.
"I don't think so," Ruby answered. "If he did, Beacon and any people in Ozpin's circle of trust would probably send huntsmen and huntresses to bring me down. His goal here today was to protect me, not to get me hunted down and killed."
"He might not mention us, though. My cover would be safe, then, but we have to assume that Beacon now knows the location of the Spring maiden," Cinder said.
Ruby opened her mouth to respond, but she wasn't sure what to say. If Salem thought that Ozpin's forces knew of Raven, it was likely she would accelerate Ruby's mission.
That would mean I get home sooner.
But if Salem didn't find out that Beacon was hunting for the same woman she was, it would be more likely that Beacon could get to her first. That meant a safer world in general, even if Ruby couldn't be the one to bring it about.
"The first order of business is to get me back to Beacon," Cinder said. "I'll make up some cover story about the eye…say I was out hunting Grimm solo and got overwhelmed."
Ruby looked at Cinder, wondering what eye she meant only to realize upon seeing Cinder's face that Ruby had entirely forgotten about her being half blinded. The adrenaline from both the fight and its aftermath had been enough to push that major tidbit to the back of her mind and then out of it entirely.
"After that, we'll contact Salem. She'll almost certainly recall me and…" Cinder winced and let out an unsteady breath. "Actually, perhaps I don't need to make up some lie to Beacon. If I'm not –"
"Keep up your cover at Beacon," Ruby declared authoritatively, doing her best impression of the most in-control person she knew – Cinder herself, ironically. "I won't let Salem kill you."
"Ruby, we both clearly heard her –"
"I'm not going to beg or plead for mercy. I know what has to be done, Cinder. Leave Salem to me."
Cinder clearly didn't believe her, but she nodded in agreement anyways. From her perspective, she was almost certainly going to be executed for mutiny.
"And when you survive…" Ruby began, stressing her sureness, "…you won't mention the presence of my father. You and I found the Spring maiden, flushed her out, and lost a fight to her. Nothing else."
That was a good enough excuse for why they wouldn't tell Salem that Beacon knew of Raven's hidden powers.
Now that the immediate pain of losing Raven right out of their clutches was passing, Ruby could breathe enough to think clearly, and she knew what her next steps were.
She hadn't been thinking of the long term enough. She didn't just get to walk up and kill the most experienced maiden in the world. If Raven was to be brought down, Ruby would need something to balance out her immense power and years of experience mastering it. That something…the best something to counter one maiden's powers were those of another.
I'm sorry, Amber. Or perhaps the Summer maiden…whichever Salem sends me up against first. And I'll need all the strength I can get my hands on if I'm going to win that fight.
It wasn't a single massive leap. It wasn't even a series of short hops. Ruby had to build the stepping stones herself if she was going to cross the river and come out on the other side alive.
It was all going to work. Ruby could still make this work.
Ruby laid low at Roman's apartment while Cinder went back to Beacon and got her eye treated as best they could. The thief seemed to recognize that things had irreversibly changed, and he'd been noticeably silent about Cinder's disfiguration. Ruby spent most of the time in her space, rehearsing her forms and quietly contemplating the incident with Raven.
Much of it was just going over what she'd seen of the older woman's fighting style in her head. The ultimate battle in Ruby's mission, no, in her life, was going to be with Raven, and she needed to start preparing herself as soon as possible.
Three days after Temeria fell, Cinder returned to the apartment to collect Ruby. Tyrian was with her, and he escorted the pair of them to the airship Ruby had taken to Vacuo.
The scorpion Faunus was smiling giddily the entire walk over, seemingly enthused by Cinder's loss of an eye. Cinder, to her credit, managed to ignore his near-perpetual staring. Ruby tried her best to do the same.
The ride was silent. Cinder's composure cracked when they came upon the darkened shores of the Grimmlands, and her hands began to shake. Tyrian's pleasant smile might've been mistaken for comfort if Ruby didn't know that he was just excited by what he assumed was an impending execution.
I'm not going to let Cinder die. I still need her.
They reached the Evernight Castle before the sun set that evening.
This appeared to be a bigger deal than most deals, since the entire rest of the conclave was waiting for them when they stepped out. Salem hadn't even waited for the trio to exit the docks, instead choosing to meet them there with Watts on her back left and Hazel to the back right.
Cinder and Tyrian knelt, and Ruby found herself doing the same.
"Your grace," Ruby said calmly, first. The other villains behind her did the same.
"How peculiar this feels, for us all to gather under such ignoble circumstances."
She was right in that it did seem particularly peculiar, for Ruby found herself and her side to be a mirror image of Salem. Both had a pair of her minions behind them, and both were standing firmly in spite of the other.
The three stood, and Salem's neutral expression seemed to grow even more neutral, if that could be a thing.
"You see, I find myself poring over my memories, and yet the time in which I ordered Cinder to endanger your life by seeking out and confronting a maiden without proper qualifications, permissions, or preparation continues to elude me."
"I made a mistake," Cinder said, her voice shaky. "Your grace…"
Ruby noticed the human woman's expression tighten, and the arm in which she housed her Scarab clenched up into a fist.
"You made no mistake," Salem said evenly. Despite keeping her voice steady, Ruby could tell that there was an undercurrent of rage from minor details in the way Salem presented herself. She neither twitched nor swayed, as she was intentionally forcing herself to remain still – a sign of rage that was only just barely contained. She was about to explode.
Cinder squeezed her eyes tightly. "My queen, I-I…"
"There was no mistake," the Grimm lady repeated. "A mistake is an error in judgment. You misbehaved intentionally, knowing full well the cost of your actions should they be revealed. And now here we are." She raised a hand, letting it hang ominously in the air. "Am I dealing with a petulant child, disobeying her guardian's demands in a bid for attention? Or does this mark the beginning of your failed ascent to greater heights, in which you would have seized my throne had you and Rose emerged successful?"
"M–"
Salem snapped her fingers, and Cinder roared in agony, arm thrashing forward and backward inhumanly like a pool noodle in the hands of a little boy.
"Those were rhetorical questions, dear," she said over the screams. "I don't care for a dead woman's answers."
"Do you care for a living woman's answers?" said Ruby.
"Not particularly," said Salem, a faint ghost of a smile on her face. "The discovery of the Spring maiden does not excuse willful disobedience, Ruby, nor will any bargain or plea you intend to make on Cinder's behalf for leniency."
"I'm not asking for leniency."
Ruby had to shout to be heard above Cinder's yelling. Blood was now dribbling down her lips, with some larger globs being fitfully coughed up.
"This wasn't the first time Cinder attempted to subvert your will," Ruby said. "This is just the first time she's been caught."
That stopped Cinder's agony, though the look Salem shot Ruby indicated it wouldn't be for long. Cinder didn't actually seem angry at the accusation, though she didn't seem to be feeling much of anything other than lingering pain at the moment. Her limp body slumped to the floor, still conscious.
"Do go on," Salem said. "I've no idea where this route shall take us, but I'm most curious what lies at the conclusion."
"You wanted me to be your destroyer," Ruby said. "And you told Cinder to train me. But she attempted to sway my loyalty from you to her by making me her underling, and by tempting me with a fake romantic relationship. She wanted the maiden powers for herself, so she tried to make me belong to her."
Cinder looked up at Ruby, horrified, but Ruby placed a foot on top of her head.
Then, she kicked her down into the ground, hard.
"It's my fault, your grace, because I allowed it. I needed her lessons, but I don't think I do anymore. Tyrian and Hazel can train me."
Salem raised an eyebrow.
"Because I still have need of Cinder," Ruby said, answering the question before it could even be said. "But not as a mentor. From now on, she'll be my underling. My bitch. She'll answer to me, not to you. Emerald, Mercury, Roman, the White Fang – any of her operations in Vale now belong to me."
Ruby waited for Salem to respond, but she didn't. With nothing else to do, she continued to outline her plan.
"Raven kicked both of our asses. If I'm ever going to kill her, I'm going to need to get a lot stronger…and if I understand our goal correctly, I eventually shall need to climb said insurmountable hurdle. Maybe months from now, maybe even years down the line, but I will need to kill the Spring maiden eventually, and I can't. Not now, not as I am."
"Cinder won't be enough to change that," Salem said. "And besides, Tyrian or Hazel could assist you."
"You're wrong, Salem."
Ruby let the word linger in the air. Salem wanted her to become a monster, and a monster didn't defer to the other monster – it challenged. She might obey further along, but this battle of wills wasn't the time or place for manners or respect.
"I have to be the one to do it…to do everything. Raven had portals for her semblance, meaning she can get away from anyone or anything. With my speed, only I could follow her through her portals before she closes them. It has to be me that kills her, and that means I need to become stronger than the Spring maiden."
Ruby gestured to the woman beneath her boot.
"Cinder has a legitimate presence in Vale. She can continue to search for the Fall maiden out of Beacon, but for the sole purpose of bringing that information to me when it is recovered. Then, she can offer herself as aid to me when the time comes to kill the bitch. With the power of the Fall maiden, I could fight Raven on equal grounds. This is the only way."
Pressing down, she held Cinder's face into the dirt and solid stone of the landing bay on which they all stood.
"She'll redeem herself by her actions. And don't you worry about me going easy on her – she forced herself upon me multiple times, and I had no choice but to accept it then, so you can bet that I won't be letting her off the hook."
Hazel scowled at that, and Watts actually had the audacity to silently chuckle, likely more at Cinder's expense as her failures were revealed in front of her many rivals. Tyrian looked like he was ready to spring into murderous action at any moment, but Ruby was no longer afraid of him. Much like Roman had been replaced by the Tyrian as the most frightening thing in Ruby's life, Tyrian himself had been usurped by Raven.
Ruby had seen the light. She now knew what was supposed to come next.
"I need to start stepping up my game." The words flowed freely from Ruby, for they were entirely true in all ways, both in cover and out of it. "You've been easing me into this, sending me on simple missions to start, but every moment in which I'm not closing in on the powers of the maidens is a moment wasted. While Cinder finds my Fall maiden, I'd ask that you send me on all combat missions from here on out to get stronger the fastest way possible. I'm ready, your grace."
Ruby removed her foot from the back of Cinder's head and knelt down in front of Salem, taking care to avoid the blood that was pouring out of the downed huntress' mouth and nose.
"I only request the opportunity to do what you've asked of me. Let me be your dark maiden, my queen."
Coming Soon – Ruby's New Life
And now, a tip from Ruby:
Ruby's Tip #105 – To deal with a rat infestation, oil the inside of a tall cup and put a slice of cheese and a nail at the bottom. The rat will crawl into the cup to lick up the oil and stab itself on the nail. Then you can have a delicious rat, nail, and cheese smoothie without any hassle or prep work.
Author's Notes
If this fic had seasons or volumes, this would be the end of Part 1. We've got our maiden, we've got our goal, and we finally know where we're going.
For some reason, I feel like it's really important that Ruby meets Raven and learns the truth without getting the powers. It changes this from 'the story of Ruby keeping up appearances with Salem until the maiden falls into her lap at the end' to 'the story of Ruby knowingly working towards the impossible goal of defeating the strongest canon character while still keeping up her cover.' Ruby tried to make it the first one by going after Raven with no prep work on an impulse, and look where she is now. She wanted a climactic fight, but real life is a slog.
She was essentially the equivalent of a noob player trying to fight the final boss and beat the game early. Such a fight would surely result in her defeat, even if she tried again with an army of Beowolves at her back, since Raven could just duck out if she senses she's losing. If Ruby wants to win, she's going to have to level up by grinding for hours.
As for Cinder: originally, I was going to take this in a different direction. The script was that Ruby would be faking being in love with Cinder, but as the stresses got to her, she would gradually start to seek Cinder out for comfort more and more just to have someone to hold onto. Ruby would rise through the ranks and realize she didn't need Cinder's training, but she would essentially use Cinder as an emotional support alligator. In time, Cinder would start to appreciate Ruby more and more and actually fall in love with her (Lima Syndrome?), while Ruby would gradually stop caring for Cinder as an individual and see her as a source of comfort to be used and discarded.
But I couldn't really fit that in, and there was no way to add it without it feeling exceedingly forced. So Cinder is now Ruby's bitch instead. Some elements of the original relationship might remain, but not many.
Yeah, this is going to be a maiden collectathon. Pre-emptively RIP, unless Ruby can figure out how to use that scarab of hers...
Happy rats, and don't do crime!
