Chapter 44 – Ruby's Revelry

The guards had been halfway upon her when she'd started screaming, but that ended up working to her advantage in the long run, because the fire that jetted out in a wide wreath around her ended up incinerating them instantly. Sooooo advantageous.

It wasn't everyone, though, just the guards who'd been on the lookout and close enough to converge on her location before Ruby's breakdown erupted quite violently. There were still plenty of other mooks left to ruin things with their very presence.

Neither of the huntresses had been among the crowd. Ruby could tell because the pair of them were currently staring her down through the barrels of their weapons, with a small Schnee army at their backs.

"HANDS IN THE AIR!" one screamed.

The snowflake was gone, but Ruby still wasn't okay. Her breathing was erratic, her skin was sweaty from the stress and the fire, there was chatter on the comms despite her specifically forbidding it, and Qrow had come back with a vengeance. The old bird was cawing up a storm as he circled overhead like a vulture, ready to swoop down and feast on the ashes at any moment.

"…was that?" asked one of the Faunus. Ruby couldn't be bothered to remember who.

Another answered. "I think one of the charges must've gone o– shit!"

There was steady gunfire on the other end of the line, and then static.

"Richu!" screamed Richu.

Wait. No, that couldn't have been Richu, since…yeah, because of…yeah. It didn't matter, though, because gunfire came through on the other line that had been speaking.

"Head in the game, kiddo," Qrow said, flying overhead. "They saw you use the maiden powers. You need to make sure they don't report on it, and I think you know how."

"HANDS! NOW!"

Qrow should've stayed dead if he was going to be this stupid. No one here could report on her maiden powers, because anyone present to witness that little light show was now a scorched mark on the ground.

Crescent Rose unfolded.

They all were still going to have to die, though.


The fires she'd started were spreading throughout the flammable structures, and most of the nonflammable ones had been brought down by the sheer explosive force of her explosion. That was good, as her mission was now complete either way. All that was left was getting out of there alive and with as many members of the White Fang as possible.

The two that had already died were the stupid ones that had raised their voices and alerted the SDC guards to their presence. Since Ruby hadn't overhead the rest being shot to death, she had to assume that they had enough presence of mind to keep quiet and escape while Ruby took care of the fighting.

I need to keep the entire camp's focus on me while they flee, and I can't use my maiden powers. If I want to survive, I'm going to have to use lethal force.

Ruby ducked out of the way as one of the guards opened fired and returned her own with Crescent. It wasn't particularly accurate, but the point of her gunshots was to mask the sound of her speaking into her radio.

"Get out of here," she calmly ordered to anyone who was listening. "I'll keep them on me – let me know when you're safe so I can retreat."

SDC guards dove out of the way for cover as she randomly shot their general direction, missing out on the fact that she'd just radioed a message. The huntresses, though, both carried shield and had stood their ground.

They now know I have allies in the vicinity, even if they don't know where. I need to kill them both before they sent troops to find the rest.

It was an uncomfortable notion, like swallowing a cherry pit whole and feeling it sink to the bottom of her stomach, but she knew it was necessary at this point. Even if they hadn't seen her use her radio, two huntresses would be too much for her to evade until the White Fang had fled.

Ruby dove towards the taller one of them first, a gray-haired woman with some sort of cannon-club for a weapon. It was probably really cool, but at this point Ruby couldn't find any joy in her entire body to feel appreciation for such a thing.

She put up a good fight, but Ruby's blitz was just too much. If the huntresses were going to have to die either way, it didn't matter if they knew Ruby was a maiden. Unbeknownst to their normal guards, the huntress' feet had been frozen to the ground. She tried to dodge out of the way when Ruby swung her scythe, but it was impossible, and her aura shattered as Ruby sliced Crescent Rose across the woman's chest with an additional punishing blast of compressed air.

The woman's eyes widened at the use of magic on her, but because it was small tricks to give Ruby an advantage and not huge, battle-ending displays of power, most of the other participants of the battle weren't even aware of anything out of the ordinary. They didn't feel their feet freeze or their chests be struck by a blast of air; they only saw a huntress freeze up and take a hit to the chest with an oversized scythe. To the non-hunter, inexplicable behaviors and visuals were merely the mysterious ways of aura-users and their enhanced abilities.

Ruby sent a bullet through the throat of the defeated huntress and blocked the incoming hit from the other before it could land on her.

"Grace! No! What have you –"

Crescent shot into the slain huntress' corpse again, and Ruby used the blast to propel herself backwards into the personal space of her living opponent. The SDC guards were now back up and had regained enough courage to start shooting, and both women were caught in the crossfire as the SDC forces' barrels followed Ruby as she flew back.

Ruby, as the Summer maiden, could gather a haze of water vapor around her, leaving it thin enough to remain invisible to the naked eye in the dead of night with only a few distant fires for light. She could also polarize the water molecules to form a charged shield that slowed down the bullets enough to make them feel like golf balls instead of high caliber Dust rounds.

The huntress could not.

Even as they gunned down their best hope at defeating Ruby, the uniformed men and women continued to fire liberally. It was impossible to tell if it was a disregard for the life of the huntress, desperation to keep (failing at) loading Ruby with bullets, or a collective lack of thought on their parts as they pulled the triggers, but it worked to her advantage. She only took light damage, and the last true combatant went down.

This would work. Ruby, as a huntress, could easily handle these ten or twenty guards without having to kill many of them.


Three.

That was the number of hired guns whose aim was just a bit too precise to consistently keep dodging. That was the number of lives Ruby had ended since the huntresses fell.

It was horrible. It wasn't like the huntresses, where they had a chance to defend themselves. No, Ruby had killed them the way a human killed a bug – quickly, easily, and without having to exert much energy.

But at the same time, once they were dead, she didn't have to hurt anyone else. It was nasty business, compromising on a few people so that she could dance circles around the rest with no risk to her or them, but it was what it was.

If I tried to let everyone live, I would've run myself ragged, and then I would've needed to fight for my life for the rest of the night. This way, they're going to be running out of bullets soon, and I'm still at solid green aura.

The guards weren't yet retreating, likely playing a dangerous game of chicken with Ruby between their ammo staches and her aura. To be fair, she hadn't yet directly attacked them, so they must've thought she was holding back for some reason. To the untrained eye, one might've thought Ruby was on the verge of collapse and had been forced to retreat to defense and dodging.

Seriously, though, when're the rest of the crew going to phone in for a retreat?

"They might be dead," Qrow pointed out.

Ruby was going to bash him for his unhelpful negativity, but she realized that he did raise a good point. If they had been shot already…

Then I killed those people for nothing.

There was an easy way to find out, though. With the few remaining guards essentially spent, Ruby felt safe enough to take out her radio and quickly spit out two words into it.

"Sound off."

No response came for a moment, and then something small, metallic, and gray landed in the densest portion of the Schnee guards' ranks.

For five seconds, it did nothing.


"P-Please," groaned the guard.

Ruby placed the gun up against his forehead. If killing the best shots from before had been difficult, this was just torture for her. This man was down, and he had no way to defend himself from anything she did to him.

His eyes closed. "Thank…you…"

Ruby pulled the trigger.

That was the last one. Only a handful had actually died during the charge's detonation, and the rest had been horribly mutilated in the ensuing blast. Most of them were covered in massive burns and were missing limbs, and a scant few had particularly disgusting injuries like shrapnel in their eyes or guts falling out. Killing them had been a mercy, especially since the alternative was leaving them to the glowing red eyes in the bushes that were tasting some delicious negativity.

Now that she was done, Ruby swallowed the pain that was in her throat and took a moment to collect herself. Then, she walked in a beeline in the direction that the charge had been thrown from.

When she'd made it to the treeline, a voice called out. "Rose! I knew you would –"

"Which one are you?" she said angrily.

"I heard you on the radio, and I knew I could help if y –"

"Which?" she repeated.

The Faunus blinked at her with confusion on his face. "Which what?"

"Which. Faunus. Are. You."

"Uh…." He smiled awkwardly and scratched at his hair. "I-It's me, Ruby. Hyacinth."

Crescent Rose flashed three time in less than a second. The first cut took both his legs at the knees. The second was aimed at his torso, low enough to rend both his torso and arms. The last was done to remove his head, plain and simple.

"Hyacinth is dead," Ruby said to no one in particular.

She'd killed before. She'd killed on accident, she'd killed on purpose, she'd killed regretfully, she'd killed with pride.

But this was the first time she'd killed solely because she'd wanted to. No need to kill was involved, nor were any orders given to do so. Nothing was lost by letting Cory live, but she'd chosen to end his life because it had sounded like it would make her feel good, and by the Gods it so fucking had. Ruby nearly fell to her knees from the euphoric relief of finally being in control and doing an action that belonged to her and no on else.

Qrow and Winter's innocent blood had stained Crescent Rose. But it felt so much better to coat it with Venne's guilty blood. It was like the stains were cleaned off, replaced by that of someone far more deserving.

Ruby left his multiple pieces of corpse where they lay and headed back to the rendezvous point. Grimm from the forests rushed past her to investigate the scene for any remaining victims to slaughter, but they wouldn't find any. Ruby Rose, the agent of Salem, had been thorough tonight.

Strangely, the Grimm ignored Ruby entirely as she walked by them in the opposite direction. The ones in the Grimmlands usually did that when on Salem's direct orders, but never the ones in the forests of the four kingdoms unless they'd been specifically instructed to. Ruby had no idea what had changed that made them lose sight of her entirely. Perhaps monsters sensed monsters.

Cassius and one other White Fang member were back at the rendezvous point when Ruby reached it. Both of their eyes lit up upon seeing her, but their smiles faded when they looked around and saw that she was all alone.

"Where's the rest?" the nameless one asked passionately. "Where is everyone?"

Ruby looked over at the Faunus and said nothing. There was no answer, honest or otherwise, that could pacify him, so she just let it go.

The Faunus interpreted that as Ruby being too shocked by the loss of her dear friends to comment and bravely drew up his sidearm. "We have to go back for them!"

"No!" said Cassius, grabbing his arm. "Venne, it's too late! If Rose couldn't get them out, they're already dead!"

"I have to!" Hyacinth said, wrestling free of his superior officer's grip. "My gut is telling me that they might still be alive! It's like before, I just know!"

He surged forward with a sudden burst of speed, and Cassius' hold on him was lost. All it took was a singular moment, and he was off running back into the forest.

"Damn it!" the last remaining Faunus cried. "Da…"

His voice lowered as he realized that shouting so loud in enemy territory was probably going to endanger him just as his subordinate's foolishness was going to get him killed.

"No Schnees left, but Grimm were swarming," Ruby breathed. "They'll probably get him."

"Why didn't you stop him?" Cassius hissed. "You could have grabbed him when I let go!"

Ruby shrugged.

"And what exactly happened back there?" he went on, still low in volume. "A charge went off? Richu and Cory were surprised by it, and Venne said it wasn't him. Was there something wrong with Hyacinth's?"

Ruby had seen it go off when the bastard threw it into the mass of Schnee guards, so she highly doubted that.

"…you're awfully calm about this all," Cassius noted.

His fingers slowly went reaching down to his waist, likely in his best impression of subtlety. It wasn't very good.

Ruby glanced at the gun on his hip, then made eye contact with him. The young Faunus broke first, pulled it out, and aimed it at Ruby for all of three seconds. Then, his nerves failed and he holstered it once more, letting out a pained sigh.

"What would I even be able to do?" he asked to no one in particular, his eyes drifting upwards towards the night sky.

Ruby sighed weakly and let out a nod at that. "That's basically the motto for tonight. No one can do anything right."

"D-Did you…was the blast you?"

Ruby didn't need to speak to answer him.

Cassius' groan was rich in strife. "What happened to all that professionalism stuff? You drill us for hours about how to best conduct ourselves, and then you went and broke it? I admit, were not the finest squad in the corp, but we were doing alright! We would've done what you asked if you'd only let us have the chance to! Why would you…just why?"

Looking back at the forest, Ruby wondered what had become of Richu. Perhaps his 'semblance' had been right, and one of the others had survived being shot when Ruby had tipped off the Schnee to their presence. Miracles could happen.

But he isn't coming back. Even if he finds a survivor, and even if they both magically evade the Grimm, there's no way that doofus could drag them back to the rendezvous point. His sense of direction was shit, and I bet he only made it here the first time because the captain was holding his hand.

When she turned her attention back to the Faunus, he was starting to look less distraught and more on the angry side of things.

"You'll pay for this," he cried out, the cautious need for silence lost in his emotional outburst. Spit came out of his mouth as he half-spoke, half-screamed. "I'll tell the High Command just how your trigger happy idiocy got my men and women killed! Let's see how you like it when your boss find –"

Ruby lazily tilted Crescent Rose upwards. It had been dragging through the ground because she hadn't been able to find the energy to close it up, thus leaving a long cut out row in the soil behind her. Aiming it was all Ruby needed to do to shut Cassius up.

His fists balled up, but there was nothing he could do, and they both knew it. She was the all-powerful huntress, and he was just a weak, puny little freedom fighter. Ruby figured this would've been particularly painful for him if he were to find out that she was a human, the same species that had always lorded its power over his.

It's a good thing that I'm not doing this to hurt him. He's too much of a risk to let go, but I'm not going to make him suffer for no reason.

"I'm sorry," she said emptily.

His eyes narrowed. "No, you're not."

"Eh, you've got me there."

Cassius closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "Make it quick. Please."

His voice cracked at the end, and Ruby felt a small swell of pity for the man. Despite how untrained he and his team were, they truly had done nothing wrong on this mission. It was no one's fault but Ruby's that things had turned to shit, but fault didn't matter in the real world. Ruby had a job to do, and one semi-innocent terrorist's life wasn't going to deter her from it.


"Explain yourself," Salem said, through the Seer. Its tentacles were already starting to pre-emptively wrap themselves around her throat in case she needed to teach Ruby a lesson.

Despite the obvious threat, Ruby wasn't particularly afraid. It wasn't because the threat wasn't real or because Ruby had some way to avoid it; no, Ruby wasn't afraid because she wasn't anything right now.

"The mission went awry. I had a breakdown in the middle of it, and we were detected as a result. The Faunus I went with perished."

Salem rose on the other end of the Seer and turned away from Ruby, walking towards a partially repaired window in the throne room of Evernight. There was a moment of silence, after which Salem turned her head downwards and to the right slightly so Ruby could only see about a quarter of her face.

"Our alliance with the White Fang?" she asked.

"They decried my failure to protect their men, but our mission was completed, so the High Command wasn't too upset. If I'm to be honest, I don't think that they actually expected –"

The tentacles around her throat constricted, and Ruby found herself unable to continue speaking. It wasn't a painful strangulation but a mere cutoff of her windpipe, thus preventing her from getting air out of her lungs.

"I care little what they expected. I expected you to succeed, not fall to pieces." Salem waved a hand, and the grip of her Seer tightened. "I must say, I am disappointed in this outcome."

Now it was starting to hurt, and Ruby's instincts were telling her to lash out. This was a Grimm, the kind of monster she'd been fighting for her entire life, and it was her natural right to destroy it. All it would take would be a single flare of her eyes, which were already practically bursting out of their sockets from anticipation.

Let us out, it felt like they cried. We were made to do this.

Ruby ignored the screeching as best she could, but it was Qrow's voice that helped her stay focused. "You have something she wants. Give it to her."

"Y…gr…s…"

Salem didn't react, content to let Ruby suffer for a little longer.

Ruby could easily tear apart and destroy and annihilate and utterly ruin the Seer that was choking her. Not doing so felt like an agony, as her eyes were on the verge of crying. Instinct was telling her that she was in danger from a Grimm, and holding back when she could so easily give in felt like trying to hold back a sneeze when it was halfway begun, or trying to stop peeing once she'd starting, or trying to not swing her scythe once she'd already pulled it back.

Her fingers somehow found the strength to slip between the coils of the Seer's arms and loosen it enough for her to draw in a deep breath. Salem turned around angrily, displeased at this disruption of her will, but Ruby spoke before she could act.

"Your grace, I –"

"I care not for your excuses. If you lost control, then perhaps you are unfit to serve me."

"I killed them."

That shut Salem up, but only for a second. "…who?"

"Everyone. The Faunus and the humans alike." Ruby took in a breath "The latter had to die for the completion of my mission, but the former died because I wanted them to stop being alive. I didn't kill them because the completion of the task you assigned me mandated me to. I killed them all with no orders to do so."

She was basically admitting to insubordination, but she had full confidence that Salem wouldn't care. This was a relatively insignificant task, done solely to fulfill some arrogant desire of Salem's to see herself as a just being and with little to no impact on the war against Ozma, which did matter to her. The biggest issue was Ruby's supposed incompetence but admitting that Salem had won would overshadow that.

And Salem had won. Ruby had no leg to stand on anymore; she couldn't lie to Salem, because she needed Salem to believe she was evil, and she couldn't lie to herself, because there was no point in that. Salem's stated goal was to ruin Ruby Rose, and Ruby Rose was ruined. She'd burned innocent men and women alive because she couldn't control her own emotions, she'd killed a non-deserving Faunus for her own gratification, and she'd cleaned up the rest of that corner of Mistral to cover it all up. The most damning part was that Ruby didn't even feel all that bad about it.

She barely felt.

But what she did feel was kinda good.


Coming Soon – Ruby's Cup of Coffee


And now, a tip from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #72 – Snitches get bitches.


Author's Notes

Welp, we've officially crossed the line. The point of no return. The event horizon.

There's no going back from this. Ruby was able to overcome her defeatist despair before at every junction, but now it's become a part of her, and she can't run from it or choose to rise above it any long. This is basically the point that our more cynical members of the Rat's Nest have been waiting for.

We knew the White Fang grunts were bound for death, and maybe we expected Ruby might turn on them because they're terrorist, but I suspect no one predict Ruby would just kill them because they annoyed her or were inconveniences.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!