Chapter 48 – Ruby's Portal Pursuit Palooza

Traveling through Raven's portal was a strange experience. She'd played a videogame with portals before where you could see right through to the other side, but this wasn't like that one; the semblance-made portals were opaque and actually quite picturesque when looked at overall.

As Ruby's body entered into the strange and bizarre vortex, her body felt like it suddenly jumped forward. It wasn't a natural, fluid movement like walking, running, or even flying. No, this was a sensation that the human form wasn't meant to experience, as though every molecule in her body teleported itself forward just a quarter of an inch at once, and then she was elsewhere. The transfer through the portal itself didn't harm her, but the sudden change in scenery combined with the disorienting effect of unexpected and unnatural motion made her a bit queasy.

Fortunately, it wore off almost instantly, or she wouldn't have been able to see Raven pass through another portal. Without even looking at the new setting in which she'd landed, Ruby activated her own semblance and followed through that one as well.

On the other side, she caught up in time to see Raven swiping a hand from the space in front of her head towards the ground, forming another portal. The bright red colors lit up the cloud-covered landscape of what looked like Atlas, but Ruby didn't have time to sightsee.

She's trying to lose me after I followed her through. These portals are hers, and I can't anticipate when she makes them. Not to mention, she's probably more accustomed to their dizzying effects than me. I'm going to have to find a way to stop her from jumping across Remnant so much, or she's going to give me the slip eventually.

Ruby chased Raven through the third portal and did her best to keep her wits about her as the pair of them exited out on the other side. As expected, Raven had another portal up the very second the first one closed, but Ruby focused on her maiden magic rather than her semblance.

Searching and feeling for rock rather than looking, Ruby hurled two at Raven's leg from opposite sides with all her might. She wasn't even sure where they were yet due to tunnel vision on the Spring maiden herself, but she trusted her environment to provide for her, and the trust was rewarded. Boulders dug themselves out of the sand and smashed into Raven's legs. The one coming from Ruby's right hit the top of Raven's leg, and the one on the left hit the bottom. Between the two of them, Ruby had her pinned and could hold her back, preventing her from moving any further.

Raven's aura kept her leg intact, but Ruby screamed with fury and pressed both rocks even harder with immense force. The direct hit was probably siphoning Raven's aura away so fast that it would break before she even could get through the portal if she didn't react.

In the split second, Raven made the choice to drop her aura around her leg rather than lose it entirely. It cost her a broken bone as the limb snapped and the rocks flew on, carried by their immense momentum, but it was probably the right move.

She can crawl through a portal if needed – hell, she can probably make one appear underneath her and just fall through it – but if her aura breaks, she loses her chances of escape.

That was what Raven had decided on. Fighting Ruby, who currently outmatched her, had been deemed too much of a risk. There was still a chance Raven would win if they duked it out, but winning was less her goal than surviving. The death of Ruby would earn Raven a prize of nothing, whereas portaling away even once without being followed would be a surefire way free.

Raven was halfway through the portal already when she lost her leg, and Ruby had to scramble ahead to get through. The sands of what was most likely Vacuo vanished, and Ruby found herself in a…Haven?

"What the –!"

Some elderly man with spectacles practically fell out of his desk, but Ruby paid him no heed. Raven had to be here somewhere. Because of her stunt with the leg, Ruby had entered the portal several seconds after Raven (just barely making it through before the thing sealed itself and took her hope with it), but there was no telltale glow of another portal here.

They were indoors this time, inside of a cramped office space with a few odd artisanal bits of furniture scattered throughout. The one door was closed, but –

"The window!" Ruby exclaimed. Rushing over to it, she pushed open the already unlocked frame and glanced around for her enemy.

Raven was gone, but the sky wasn't clear. Qrow was cackling like a mad-bird, circling around another blackbird and highlighting it disappearing form as it flew further and further away.

Oh, she can do it. too, Ruby thought, lining her finger gun up with the bird. I always thought Qrow being a bird was just his thing, but they are siblings…

Ruby pulled back her hand, and a perfect line of electrical current so straight it would've made an Arkos shipper cry zipped through the sky right into Raven. The bird exploded in a puff of smoke, and Raven fell out of the sky, still in her bird form.

Wait…isn't the bird Qrow just a…a figment of…

A question for later. Ruby was rolling with the assumption that it was Raven, and the time for being wishy-washy was long passed. She now needed to commit.

Ruby threw herself out of the old man's window and flew through the sky towards her target, fireballs in her hands. As expected, a portal opened up right beneath Raven, lining up with her trajectory so that gravity would pull her through it, but Ruby wasn't going to let that happen. Snapping her arms out with her palms flat, Ruby sent the fireballs hurtling towards the fowl.

Both collided into it, and the creature squawked in pain as it was knocked out of the way. She tried to form another portal, flapping her wing beneath her, but Ruby was now upon her. Grasping the bird with two hands, she snapped.

That made it rasp in that screechy noise birds made, and both wings began to bleed. The black form expanded rapidly back into Raven's human body, neither of her arms affected by Ruby's attack…though her leg was still damaged.

"You keep damage in each form…guess that means your flapping days are done."

"You're not fit to bear the Rose name!" Raven furiously yelled, opening a portal beneath them. "Whatever qualms I had with Summer, I respected her as a leader, and you're no daughter of hers!"

"Not really relevant to what I said, but sure." Ruby shrugged as both women fell through the portal.

There was no chance that Raven could escape through it, as Ruby's arms were still tightly grasping hers, but the sudden chance in sunlight and temperature was a bit of a shock, and it gave Raven the advantage since she'd been expecting it, having known where the portal would take them.

Patch.

"This was my home, then hers, then no one's!" Raven screamed as she threw Ruby with the might of a Leviathan into her childhood home. "Where we agreed that despite our differences, we could work together…one last time."

Her back slammed into the side wall, and Ruby just barely managed to bring her arms up in time to block Raven's kick from potentially snapping her neck back. Instead, the wall broke, and Ruby fell into the inside of the homemade home.

"Where we agreed to work together…one last time. Where I said goodbye to her…one last time."

Well, for all that Raven could control their environment, she'd certainly given Ruby the home turf advantage. Ruby knew this cabin and the surrounding forests better than she knew her own name.

But she lived her too, before she ran off. I can't count on any advantage.

"Do you want to know how your mother died, child?" Raven asked, venom dripping from her voice as she levitated through the hole in the wall through which she'd kicked Ruby. "Who killed Summer Rose?"

Ruby nodded once. "Was it Salem?"

"It was Sal–"

Raven's voice dropped off in shock just as Dad came running down the stairwell to see what had caused the noise. Ruby gave him once quick glance while Raven was processing her shock, then turned her eyes back to her opponent.

"Y-You know?"

"Ruby?" Dad rubbed his eyes. "Raven?"

"There's not a lot I don't know anymore," Ruby offered.

Raven snarled and let her eyes burn with maiden power, but Ruby faced her display of intimidation with one of her own. The difference was, Ruby could make her eyes burn with two different colors. Raven was limited to one.

"If you give up now and just give me the powers I want," Ruby said calmly, "then I will still kill you."

Dad stepped between the two of them with his arms raised, one towards each woman. "STOP! NOW!"

Raven raised up her arms and threw a glowing ball of energy straight down, creating an explosion that was mostly smoke and very little heat. Ruby saw through the distraction for what it was and maneuvered past Dad with her semblance. Raven was trying to turn the interruption to her advantage, but Ruby wasn't going to let her. She would not, could not get away.

"Ruby!" A hand grabbed her arm. "Wait!"

Tilting her head, Ruby created a steam of air that blew away the smoke and revealed the tails of Raven's coat as it disappeared through another red portal. She had no time for…

"Goodbye!" said a raspy voice outside. "Caw-caw-caw! Goodbye!"

Ugh…ugh ugh ugh!

Ruby leaned into the arm that gripped her and gave dad a quick hug. "I love you. I'll be home after this, I promise."

Then, she forced her wrist to start sparking. It wasn't enough to hurt her father, but he instinctively retracted his hand, giving Ruby just enough time to pursue Raven to wherever their battle would take them next.


They were in Atlas now. Ruby wondered for two seconds who it was that Raven had used as an anchor to bring them here before a red laser sight found itself on her chest.

"Hands in the air!" screamed the headmaster of Atlas, who Ruby recognized from her civics class as General James Ironwood. "Ruby Rose, you are under arrest for the murder of Ozpin and Qrow Branwen! Raven Branwen, you are under arrest for desertion, banditry, arson…"

As the Atlesian leader continued to list the rapsheet, Ruby looked over at Raven to find that she also had her own laser sight from the second gun in his hands.

"Damn," she said. "You've got good reaction times. I think I hadn't even fully touched the ground before you'd drawn on us."

"She murdered your mother, and you work for her?" hissed Raven.

"Hands in the air, or I will shoot!" shouted Mr. Ironwood. "Security!"

"Don't try to pull the mother card, Raven," Ruby clapped back. "Not after what you did."

"I care about Yang in my own way. But you dishonor Summer and her sacrifice in every way."

Ironwood's twin pistols discharged, but both huntresses deflected the blasts…towards each other. The two of them had been so focused on their own defense that they hadn't had time to prepare for the others. Thus, both were shot on their aura, almost as though neither had chosen to deflect their own Dust round.

Raven staggered through. Ruby, with her two working legs, could stand on the ground, but Raven had to either limp along or use up her precious magic to float. The longer this fight drew on, the worse her odds grew. In other words, Ruby had this in the bag.

Ironwood shot at them again, but Ruby reflected his shot back to him this time, and it knocked the gun out of his hands.

And evidently, Raven had chosen to do the exact same thing.

"Wow, this is some weird mirror image BS," Ruby said.

"Don't you dare compare yourself to me, you bitch," Raven said. Her hands raised in a fighting stance, but Ruby could tell her face was clearly holding back a wince from pain.

"I wasn't lying about my offer," Ruby said. "If you just surrender, I'll take your powers and kill you."

"And what about that is supposed to entice me to surrender? I don't want myself to lose."

"Yeah but, like, I do."

"Security! Guards!"

Ruby glanced at Ironwood briefly, then turned back to Raven. "You got anyone else you could take us to? This guy is just kind of annoying."

Raven replied by reaching out to the metal in the doors and walls of Ironwood's office, heating it until it glowed, and coating her entire body in a suit of gleaming hot molten armor.

Ruby sighed.


"Monster!" Raven screamed. "Wicked beast!"

Ruby continued to fly circles around her and pepper her both with stray punches and kicks. Her and Raven's fight had devasted Ironwood's office, which was at the top of the tallest building in all of Atlas, so their battle now took to the skies above the city. It negated Raven's disadvantage of not being able to walk, but it also gave Ruby a full 360 view of everything around her, meaning no hidden portals, so she allowed it.

Raven had given up on trying to reason with Ruby and was now just throwing out insult after insult. Ruby considered meeting them with her own, but she decided that it might be a bit more thrilling to instead roast Raven for her mistakes.

"I bet you're regretting attacking me in Temeria. If you'd just shut your trap then, you'd be safe and sound with your bandits and your Vernal back home in Mistral."

"Murderer!"

It wasn't even an insult, that word. Ruby had murdered people, and she didn't feel guilt about it at all anymore, so it had no chance of hurting her. Seriously, Raven's behavior was just kind of sad now.

"You know," Ruby started. "You could've saved her. I had nothing against that young woman; had you chosen to appear before she died rather than after it, I would've spared her life."

"I thought you were your mother's daughter." Raven caught one of Ruby's punches and responded with her own. "I was wrong!"

It wasn't enough, though. Ruby stopped her flight through the sky and sent a twirling tornado of sharpened ice sharps around Raven. "You keep trying to use her to hurt me…it's clearly not working."

"Salem experimented on her kind!" Raven growled through the strong winds. "She tried to turn my teammate into a monster, but Summer killed herself before she could let…before she could let herself be turned into what you've willingly become."

"What, so did Mom kill herself or die to Salem?" Ruby scratched her head. "I'm confused."

"She was captured," Raven gasped. She must've known that fighting was a lost cause and fleeing was just as foolhardy, so her only hope was in touching Ruby's heart and convincing her to stop this. So, no hope.

"She was captured," Raven repeated. "And Salem tried to…to…but Summer ended her own life. The blame lies with Salem. YOUR MASTER!"

Raven opened another portal, but Ruby charged forward and tackled her through it. Both of them jerked uncomfortably as the frigid, high-altitude winds of Atlas were replaced by…

"Ruby?"

Ruby looked up. "S-Salem?" She looked down at Raven. "You're bonded to her?"

Raven just growled from underneath Ruby. She'd pinned her to the floor of the now refurbished throne room in the Evernight Castle, of all placed.

A portal opened up beneath them, as Raven had evidently decided that Salem's own domain granted Ruby too much advantage.

I'm lucky she did – it would be difficult deserting from Salem in person.

The pair of huntresses tumbled out onto a dirt road, this time colliding with the bonded portal-person. He was the only person around for miles in the otherwise empty middle of nowhere, so it had to be him. This person was a young boy, actually, with dark tan skin and a bizarrely mismatched set of clothes that were stained with mud at the shirt sleeves and bottom of the trousers. Based on his youthful appearance and rounded face, he was probably younger than Ruby.

"Who the fuck're you?" Raven cursed at the boy.

He blinked down at the two of them, then cleared his throat awkwardly. "Raven? Miss Rose?"

Ruby couldn't help but laugh at the situation. "Oh, this is fun, Raven. Where to next? We've done Vacuo, Mistral, Atlas, the Grimmlands…what about Menagerie? Or do you have one for Vale? No, no, don't tell me – it'll be more fun if it's a surprise."

Before Raven could speak, Ruby punched her in the nose, using her magic to push up on the ground beneath her. Raven was caught between a literal rock and a hard place, and she grunted in agony from the head trauma. Her aura flickered with a dangerously static-like pattern, indicating that it was getting closer to breaking. Probably just a few more hits.

Raven growled and flared up her maiden eyes, but Ruby sent out a pulse of air in all directions. The young boy was blown off his feet and away from them, as was Raven's attack.

Ruby could only watch in gleeful joy as Raven's maiden fire slowly diminished around her eyes.

"Game over."

Raven's next grunt came out halfway as a whimper, and she drove a fist into Ruby's stomach, but Ruby blocked the hit with a shield of compressed air. The fight was truly over now that Ruby was magic and Raven wasn't, and it was time to just go through the motions.

I can't let my guard down, though. A cornered rat is most dangerous…heh, an apt comparison.

Raven tried to grapple Ruby, but her arms wrapped around flames, and she cried out in pain and released her hold quickly. Ruby straddled Raven, and her fingers wrapped around her throat as she began to clench down on Raven's airways. The defeated woman gasped for breath, and her limbs began to wildly flail against Ruby's strong aura.

This is my moment. This is what you get, Raven, what I'm giving you. Me. Ruby. The brat you tried to kill and failed to. Your actions were the cause of this. You made me into what I am. All of this is your fault, Raven.

It was finally time to kill Raven Branwen, and Ruby was going to enjoy every –


No.

As much as the cathartic desire to physically break her opponent appealed to Ruby's worst nature, her goal wasn't to kill Raven.

Every part of her soul recoiled at what she did next. It was like biting down on a cookie and swallowing it halfway only to pull it out of your mouth in the way that Ruby had to manually halt every desired impulse to go the rest of the way, but Ruby let go of Raven. Not entirely, but just enough to give her some room to breath.

"Your aura…nod if it's unbroken."

Raven glared at her. Her head neither nodded up and down nor shook side to side.

Ruby flicked against her cheek and was rewarded with all the proof she needed. Raven still had aura.

"Listen closely." Ruby leaned in closer, enough so that she was practically whispering into Raven's ear. "I know where your tribe is."

She felt Raven tense up. Good – the more fear she felt, the more pain she experienced…

No. Focus.

"And they mean nothing to me. I'm willing to let them go, unscathed…if you can do one thing for me, that is."

Ruby leaned back and waited for Raven's response. She may have been a coward who abandoned her own daughter, but she had abandoned Yang for that tribe, so they must've meant something to her. Raven knew she was dead either way, but she might be able to protect her shitty bandit folks.

As Ruby expected, the elder huntress nodded vehemently.

"Portal. To Yang. To Beacon."


Coming Soon – Ruby's Education


And now, a tip from Ruby:

Ruby's Tip #2 – Laundry detergent doesn't work. It has never actually deterred me from doing laundry.


Author's Notes

We're approaching the end here. It's time for Ruby to go back to where it all began.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!