Ruby's chest itched. Right in the middle. She scratched it intensely, grinning. Based on the context, there were two words you could use for a search party: one was for most any context of being lost, the other was for being lost in an Atlas blizzard. It was specific because it was one vowel sound away from 'mortician,' which was a cute little play on words that delighted Ruby.
Well, no, she didn't really give a shit about that, she was delighted by the fact that she knew it. Or rather, that her soul knew it: her soul that was Weiss', Weiss' soul that was hers, the parts of her heart and lungs that left her hungering to drink, to taste that feeling again— cold mint exploding behind her eyes, juniper rushing beneath her face, wax and wick and char on her tongue.
Weiss was close. Central Atlas wasn't very large. Manor Schnee was near— she had its exact location on her phone. The knowledge was like an arc of electricity along the seam of her cerebral hemispheres, bouncing back and forth, energizing her. She knew where to go, and she knew Weiss was there.
Honestly, Ruby didn't care about anything else. She didn't care about why her partner was in her family home, she didn't care why she'd be taken, she didn't care who took her (even though it was definitely Fourths), she only cared about getting in there and getting her hands on that stupid girl; she'd drag her out by the hair if she had to, or even if she didn't have to— that'd show her not to get kidnapped again.
As a bonus, mum stopped talking. She hadn't heard her since she got onto the Central platform. It helped her focus on the feeling of Weiss' heart, how it itched, how it yearned, craving more and more as the distance on her phone's maps closed. She chased the feeling. She chased it even as the itch became a pain, a burn, an all-consuming soul-fire of desperation that made her burn and burn and burn, and there was only one thing that could possibly quench her.
She could almost hear it— 'Florabel, Florabel'— the scratch of it so resonant in Ruby's head that it made her tic, her throat itching desperately to strike that nasally-throaty balance. She "Flor"d contentedly, cawing the noise aloud into the crisp midnight air as she darted through alleyways, over fire escapes, onto rooftops, swinging with her wires in a way that was so calm and controlled that it shocked her. She found herself channeling her Aura into her back and arms almost instinctively to pull her along with more force, then down into her legs to move them more quickly, keeping her feverish momentum up whenever she had to land in a sprint, up and down again and again, her soul like a hot, rushing liquid, flowing like she'd never felt before.
Everything became a second thought, even the environment she was swinging and running and leaping across, as if her body could move fully on its own as her mind drove her to the one thing she wanted more than anything else— more than any one else. She felt almost formless, as if swiftness had become her, every cell in her body seeking its own speed independently of any other, the state of her wholeness feeling more and more like a limitation as she raged against the limits of what anyone could do. She felt like she was ripping apart, but she didn't want to stop it. Something was happening and it was natural, it was right, it relieved her, as if a kernel or a piece of meat had finally slipped out from the molars of her soul. She was going to break, but even if every part of Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose broke apart and raced onward of its own volition, she knew the pieces would all end up in the same place.
So she did. She did break apart. Like the Rose before her, the one within her, the one who she finally felt seeping into her, Ruby shattered into a black-red boid of feathers, petals, and sparks of silver. Whyever, whatever, however, Ruby didn't care.
Finally, Summer Rose was giving up.
Weiss was awoken by the sound of her father's sneer. "Leave us, boy," he told Roman, who jolted off the wall where he'd probably been dozing. The mafioso opened his mouth to argue, but decided not to. He was apparently quite a bit smarter than Weiss had assumed.
Roman Torchwick left with something alike to an apology on his face, though it was a look he only briefly flashed to Weiss before swaggering out on his cane. Jacques stared at her as soon as the narrow room had emptied. It was likely an old servant's quarters or some small and abandoned storage room, left forgotten so long after the mansion had drifted away from its own epoch.
Jacques' eyes were intense and spiteful, not at all like how he had been when Weiss first arrived. "You bastard," he seethed, stomping to his daughter's restrained form before unleashing a meaty backhand upon her left cheek— more like a flat punch than a slap, the mass of his aged and gnarled knuckles striking her rather than his fingers, his rings opening a trio of thin scrapes along her cheekbone. Weiss hissed, but it wasn't much of a pain, not really. Not compared to what she'd been through now, compared to her nemesis.
He backhanded her again— from the same side— cracking her neck down from the force as he opened a second group of ring-cuts. Weiss grunted this time, but that was all she'd offer.
"Stupid little whore," he cursed, the 'r' of their mother tongue rolling so sharply from his mouth that it sounded like he was trying to stab her with the words. "I can not have one thing to myself— I take you here! I take you here to keep you safe and do your job— finally, finally, it is the job that I always needed you to do, for me, and I set for you the world to enjoy: your mother, my wife, back again; the spawn given milk and honey like you always wanted— but all you ever want to do is destroy, destroy, destroy!"
Jacques Schnee was a man who wielded his formal, pastoral dialect like a dull axe. His words were wet with rage, but Weiss could do little more than shrink and squint to shield herself from the spittle. She was, to be candid, wholly apathetic towards his plight. It was almost funny seeing him like this again— almost nostalgic— because this was the right way for him to be. So spiteful, but so pitiably little, this was the way she had known Jacques Schnee. It was a simple confirmation that warmed the cockles of Weiss' heart: she had not misremembered her childhood, this man had made no change of heart, there was no mistake in her flight from this place. It felt good to be right.
And yet Jacques still rambled and ranted, striking her occasionally— sometimes hard enough to put stars in her eyes— but Weiss was lost somewhere in the sea of relief, adrift, enjoying her triumph. She was, as Blake had once said, 'feeling herself'.
She spat blood from the hollow socket of a canine her father's ungentle ministrations had excised, the hock landing perfectly in his eye. He yelped and recoiled loudly, dramatically, moreso on both fronts than had been the daughter he was so enthusiastically abusing. Weiss took the opportunity granted by this moment of space, her words slurring and lisping from her battered head and cracked mouth. "What happened to my siblings," she demanded, her voice as hard as she could make it, the effect hopefully amplified by the amount of blood she was spitting out with each word. "And what did you do to my mother's body?"
He stormed back to her, hand raised again. He grinned. "Your sister thought she could get away from me," Jacques growled darkly. "But there is no place I do not have eyes and hands, especially not the military."
"And my br—"
He hit her, nearly tipping her past consciousness. "Little Whitley is a stupid degenerate boy who whores himself out to beasts. He should be glad he is better a gimp than a son."
Weiss rolled her starry head back, trying to glare murderously at the man whose blood cursed her veins. "You are fucking my little brother?"
Jacques hit her in the gut this time, making acid rush up her throat, nearly escaping, before she cut off her own cry by clamping her mouth shut and locking the liquid in. She swallowed thickly. Jacques responded, smug and cruel, "He wishes I would unsully him so, I am sure. But no." He straightened, wiping his knuckles on a handkerchief.
It was becoming very hard to speak. "And my mother? And the spawn? Why are they penned again?"
Jacques snorted. "You would like to know, of course you would; those repulsive miscarriages of god are all you ever think about. You were probably fucking one too, just like your brother." His eyes darted to her torso, sparking with cruel mischief. "And it has been how long? You must have some beast's cancerous spawn in you now."
He grinned, his white teeth shining as his daughter's expression finally crested into horror. Through her blurring vision, she caught his foot rising— the polished black shoe gleaming— and she tried to say something before being abruptly cut off by pain. He booted her low in the gut, making her clench her whole body tight so as not to humiliate herself, but a second stomp had his heel punching deep enough that she couldn't keep it together anymore. After so many hours forced to sit still in this godforsaken chair— now near blind with white-hot pain and conscious only by the whim of some vast celestial cruelty— Weiss pissed herself.
It was the single worst feeling she had ever had in her entire life. She suddenly did not want Ruby to find her. She suddenly did not want to be seen by anybody or anything ever again. She suddenly wanted to close her eyes and die.
But she couldn't. Death wouldn't be for her, not this night, and she could hardly abide by that. So, when the man who stole her mother's name bent forward, saying, "And now that it is dead, I can—" and placed her thumb on her lower lip, Weiss' world snapped to bright and furious clarity. She was inspired. She was enlightened. She was set free. Weiss Schnee thought of that first scuffle with Ruby, she thought of the church, of dying with her hand on Ruby's face.
Jacques was a wretch. He was scum. He was a man who would abuse three out of three of his children, though Weiss was now beginning to suspect there may be some poor Faunus deep in the pens with a bastard in her belly. Jacques Schnee was weak and lame, lording his name over the congregation like he was the one who had ancient Arch blood, not his wife. Jacques Schnee was the true embodiment of that double entendre, of calling somebody a 'beast': you have an animalistic and bestial heart; your bloodline must've lain with Grimm to make such a repugnance as you.
Jacques Schnee wailed as Weiss, with fervor and surety that struck her like an apotheosis, snapped her head down, opening wide to gorge on as much of his hand as she could take with his thumb. His skin was rough and salty, hot, and he batted at her in a feeble panic as her teeth pressed down hard, invoking the shield of his soul. He wasn't a fighting man— she could feel how thin the barrier was— but it was enough to stop her from tearing into the meat.
Weiss could feel her soul— her ravenous soul that was in her cells— raging out against the taste of anyone besides that which shared her heart and her lungs, but she was starving nonetheless. The borscht, now a distant memory, was a meal that filled her stomach, but her body needed more than the corporeal. Her body needed sustenance of a wholly different variety, but now Ruby's was the only taste she wanted, the only taste she could readily accept.
But that didn't matter. Want didn't matter now, accepting didn't matter now, because she would drain Jacques Schnee whether she liked it or not, and she would do it because she had to. She would do it to be free.
Her lips tingled, then burned, grinding themselves through Jacques' Aura as Weiss wedged open the sluice of her soul, and soon she felt the skin and the meat and, after another second of grunting as she pulled her neck back and forced her jaw to shut, the blood. Her father's blood was iron, foul and fetid, but running down her tongue the same as it rolled in her veins, each living cell of flesh and blood bound to his being through an immutable connection of spirit and body— an immutable connection which Weiss Schnee was built to mute. His soul flooded her like a tidal wave sucked into a vortex, and she drew it from his porous wound with equal parts spite and voracious hunger.
It was like eating Penny again. Her body seized, trying to reject it, but in seizing she couldn't stop herself— not that she'd want to anyways. Jacques eventually managed to punch Weiss hard enough that her jaw was forced to relent, and he wrenched his hand free, the ligaments of his palm and broken thumb barely hanging on by dripping scraps. He cried out, seeming to finally gain some sense as he raised his foot to stomp her into submission, but it was far too late; his soul was familiar enough to be of use. Weiss felt a chill misting about her shoulders.
His foot careened towards her. A hand grabbed it.
Ruby was at the manor before she even knew it. Her phone pinged as if she wasn't already zipping over the tall wrought-iron fence, pounding the front door with her knuckles, the space between those moments compressed and filtered out of her mind— sort of like how you forget how many times you blink in any given situation or how your brain edits out your nose. Something about her mother's soul— the haste of it, the power— left her simmering with frustration. Summer was trickling into her at a snail's pace, and sure, it granted her this much already, but it was a faucet's drip trying to empty an ocean. Her soul was bared to Ruby, just a stubborn crack. Ruby wanted all of it.
She was jerked out of her thoughts when the colossal door awoke with clicking and shunting noises, then creaked as it opened. A man appeared through the opening threshold— nicely dressed, starting to speak— but Ruby was immediately upon him, buckler flashing into a thick knife that bit redly into the saggy meat of his neck. She very nearly killed him, her Aura channeling into her arms passively, moving the knife with more strength than she intended. She barely managed to push him away from herself in time, then set upon the man again with more control, grabbing his collar.
"Weiss," Ruby demanded, though speaking felt wrong, unnecessary. She wanted to kill him and be done with it, she wanted to tear through this place from top to bottom, to use the whole of Summer's soul on that effort, like how she'd nearly made herself foam at the mouth blowing through all those stims for Weiss' sword. She wanted to become a formless, limitless black-red shroud again.
The man— a Faunus, she realized, with pulley-operated hooks on his hoof-hands— made a pathetic squeak.
"Weiss," Ruby repeated, adding, "Before I kill you," even though some niggling part in the core of her brain told her that she would never threaten one of her own kind. He made a noise like a yelping animal, so Ruby tightened her grip on his collar and pressed the knife's edge to his cheek. It felt wrong, sinful and unsatisfying— like systematically jamming every peg through the square hole— but she did it to get this over with. "Weiss! Now! Where is she!"
Her tongue rolled in a way that she didn't know it could, and it took her a long time to realize it was Mantell she'd spat in this poor old Faunus' face. It must've risen from the Weiss-side of her soul in her desperation. Her chest felt like a flower trying to blossom, constricted.
He babbled something she didn't really understand word-for-word, but she gleaned that his urgent voice and frantic pointing were meant to direct her. She pulled away and grabbed his shoulder, turning him forcefully, and nudged his back with the knife. He moved slower than she'd like, slower than she'd be able to raze this place to its foundations, but that asinine core of her mind won out and opted for mercy.
He led her down empty halls. A dead manor. A place that was built to bustle with the traffic of servants and the family they served, but now the wide halls only resonated with their footsteps. Thankfully, he led her to a room— one with grand white doors inlaid with gold— relatively quickly, conveying through words and gestures that they'd be passing through it. He unlocked the door and stepped aside, motioning for Ruby to open it as he slowly shifted around her. With a gentle touch on her shoulders, pinching her cloak, he nonsensically urged her to leave her cloak with him. She unclasped it, for whatever stupid reason, and shrugged the mantle off into his hands.
She took a last glance at the Faunus. He regarded her with an oddly formal bow, which… didn't seem like a good sign. Frowning, Ruby Florabel Rose opened the door.
It was a huge ballroom, its floor a perfectly polished herringbone, the walls white and gold, the whole room festooned with finery of rich blue braids and long banners of navy, white, and scarlet. At the menagerie of figures within, Ruby let out a long and frustrated sigh. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
"Bell-Bell!"
Jacques stared, his whole face set wide and ajar with horror. Another hand, huge and sickle-clawed, wrapped over Weiss' shoulder to pull itself up, digging cuts into the flesh of her chest as its freezing, spectral blue touch was painted red. The Wendigo pulled itself from her soul half-formed, little more than a sagging body, lanky arms, and a horrible horned skull. It sighed to life, still huge and horrible despite being diminished, the ethereal blue innards from its lower chest dragging along Weiss' front as it pulled itself up and over her.
Jacques fell to his back, kicking and screaming, but the razor touch of his daughter's summon cut deeply into the leg he thrashed. The blood quickly spread across his white pants, coming to cover the Wendigo's claws like its touch could draw the deep red liquid in. The creature crunched and caved as it tumbled fully to the floor, its fleshy ribcage shattering and reforming just the same as had the Grimm she and Ruby slayed. It pulled the man in, its face collapsing easily beneath his heel, but it did not die. Its fingers speared into his pelvis, hooking the bone, dragging him in even as he wailed and wept and kicked its reforming face to bone dust over and over again. It groaned its long and throaty groan.
"Weiss!" Jacques shrieked. "Weiss, daughter, please! Let me go! It is going to kill me!"
Half of her wanted to see it, right then and there: Jacques Schnee splayed wide, his blood haloing him, viscera spread out like wings. Instead, she felt something else tugging at her tender and girlish heart. She urged her abominable protector to stay its hand. It immediately rebelled, whirling and thrashing towards Weiss, but she raised her blood-crusted chin and stared it down. There was only one thing with the rights to her life, and it was stronger than a mere Wendigo could ever be.
It ducked, keening elkishly. Weiss bade the thing put its claws to better use freeing her, so it dragged itself around the chair to set its talons upon her bindings. She sighed in relief, stumbling on numb legs. Jacques was still on his back, rocking, cradling his wounds and weeping over the pain. Weiss, with the utmost effort keeping herself on her feet, approached her father.
She rubbed her wrists, even though her father's bilge-tasting soul had long since healed the raw skin there. Behind her, the Wendigo made a long and needy noise. "Papa," she said, quiet and coaxing, forcing him to quiet down and listen.
His face plucked up with desperation, his voice pleading. "Yes, daughter! Anything!"
"My sword," she said honestly. "I just want my sword."
"My study! I have kept it there, I will take you!"
"It is locked?"
"I can unlock—"
She stomped down on his throat. She kept her foot there. "No thank you, papa," she said politely. "I just want my sword."
Once he died, Weiss rifled through pockets until she found his key. The walk to the study was annoying with her legs so numb, but she took joy to have burned away what remained of Jacques' soul within her, and she felt her summon fade away with little fanfare. Her sword was in its sheath, leaning against the desk, so she put it back where it belonged.
"Now, which way to the pens…"
"How the fuck are you alive?"
Penny giggled. "Don't be stupid, dumbass!"
Ironwood waved her down to relax. Winter held the handles of his chair. Torchwick was at the back of the room, smoking. Another lady stood between him and Ironwood.
She is a robot, you know.
Ruby looked the android up and down. She looked exactly the same as the last time she'd seen her. "What, did you have her consciousness stored in the CCNet? I dunno if that's legal. Or, uh… possible."
Oh, no, I can channel souls. You know Aura channeling?
Ruby groaned.
It's like that, just more.
"That's your Semblance? Why'd you let me fuck you up, then? Where's your Aura?"
I never said it was my Semblance.
Ruby opened her mouth to question him, then snapped it shut. She squinted around the room. Just Winter would be a lot. This was a lot.
"Okay, look, being honest? I don't give a shit about whatever you're doing with Weiss. Just give her back and I'll skedoodle. Seriously." She took another look around, mentally plotting her priorities. "I mean, I could take you. It just wouldn't be very fun."
I agree. I could take you to Weiss, you know.
"For real?"
For very real.
Her scythe itched in her palms. She could prove herself here, against people. Her hands were already bloodied, she was here with the intent to kill, what was the point of holding back? Why not tear through?
Ruby blinked, shook the weird thoughts out of her head, and relaxed. "Sick, yeah. Leggo."
Penny deflated. Torchwick's eyebrows went very high. Even Ironwood expressed some surprise.
Really? I could be leading you into a trap.
Ruby snorted. "Most definitely, but good luck with that. I'd mulch you first, wheels."
Ironwood recoiled.
"Uh, sorry." Ruby cleared her throat. "That was mean. Lead the way."
And Ironwood did, Winter pushing him down the halls, his entourage following behind Ruby. She turned, addressing the lady and Torchwick.
"So what's up with you guys? How's your kid, Roman?"
The lady grinned at her madly. "If you try to run, I'll get to watch you burn."
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but, like, what's your name?"
"Cinder," the lady growled, breathy, smoke trailing from her mouth.
"Cindy," Roman corrected. "She's one of mine: torturer, evidence burner, et cetera."
"Man, you gotta get out of this stuff," Ruby suggested. "You've got a kid."
Torchwick rubbed the back of his neck, his cane tapping with every other step. "Y-yeah, I know. It's just, like… like I told your girlfriend: what am I gonna do? Get a job at the local grocer?"
Ruby didn't even correct him. "You're telling me you're a kingpin in the criminal underground, but you don't know one guy who can make you— poof— disappear?"
Roman frowned. "I…" Cinder/Cindy turned to glare hot coals down his shirt. "Uh… no. I do not know any way to do that."
Ruby turned forward again and snorted. She poked Winter. "So, what was Weiss like as a baby?"
Winter's shoulders hiked up high. Ironwood turned in his chair to glare at Ruby.
Please, do not speak to her.
Ruby barked out a laugh. "Why not? And why would I give a shit if you don't want me to? You're clearly the bad guys."
Ironwood turned forward again, grunting.
Perspective, Florabel.
"Don't call me that."
Now was Ruby's turn to get a hard poke. She turned, finding Penny staring very close. "Bell-Bell," she hissed smilingly, making Ruby tic through her teeth. "Say, can you lay eggs? Do you molt? Do you eat bird seeds? And dead stuff? Do you get the urge to migrate with the seasons? Can you fly?"
Ruby blinked at the sudden barrage. "Uh… do you actually wanna know? Or are you being racist?"
"I'm not racist," Penny whined, and Ruby nearly made the mistake of trying to counter that. Instead, she answered:
"No Faunus can lay eggs, I do molt, I have the dietary requirements of a human, I don't have 'bird-instincts', if that's what you mean, and," Ruby pulled her arms out from her cloak, presenting her feathers. "Do these look like they'd carry me anywhere?"
Penny laughed like a child teasing another. "I can fly."
"I stabbed you in the head once, I will do it again."
Could we make the rest of this trip in silence, please?
"Fuck no," Ruby barked, snorting. "Say, you guys didn't hurt her, did you?"
Ironwood sent her a promising look of disgust.
Why in the world would I hurt one of my own?
"Dunno if I'd say she's 'your' own, but that's good to hear."
She is a Fourth.
"She's my Fourth," Ruby asserted. Winter's shoulder twitched.
You cannot pretend to care for her forever. She'll show her true colors— white and scarlet.
Ruby cocked her head. "You… don't sound like you believe that."
Ironwood sighed.
She said I could, 'Enlighten her cock with my lips.'
A bright, full laugh scraped down the manor's yawning halls. Ruby slapped her knees. "She really said that?"
Roman confirmed, "And she claimed to have lost her thumb in the kid's mom's ass."
Ruby grinned. "That's my—"
Thum-thuthumthuduthumthud-thump— sqreeeek.
Tumbling down like a sack of pale, white potatoes from a nearby stairwell, Weiss skidded face-first on the polished floor.