"Text" – Speech
Italics – Thoughts
"Uncle Qrow!"
Her Uncle is a lot of things.
He's a brave huntsman who has taken on more jobs than anyone else she knows.
He's a patient mentor willing to teach a huntress in training way out of her depth.
He's a great Uncle who loved to spoil his nieces when they were younger.
He's a lifelong bachelor whose lips love the taste of a bottle more than any women they've been on.
But most importantly, he was not here, and it was slowly approaching the meetup time since Ruby had last seen him. She let out a huff, concern and irritation warring on her face. "A simple mission he said, a quick in and out he promised, but nooooo it couldn't just be that fuc—" Ruby cut herself off, pinching the bridge of her nose. No, I can't afford to snap right now. This is just an unfortunate series of events completely outside of our control and I can't blame him for it. After all, the only reason we're out here is because of me. Because I . . . a few beats pass before she lets out a long sigh.
If I could contact our pilot, then we could work on tracking down my stupid Uncle and leave, or at least notify Ozpin and have him send us help. A quick glance at her scroll shows the screen frozen on the aura monitoring system. The handles had bent after she fell during her escape from the village, and the screen had been unresponsive since. Without the time or tools necessary to fix it, she had been forced to grip it in one hand while running to the meetup point. She had to use her semblance to avoid a few Grimm that caught her off guard, and had to use most of her ammo to cut down those blocking her path. Wasteful as both actions were, she wouldn't force her Uncle to shoulder the weight of two incapable huntsmen. Thankfully, Ruby had managed to arrive before the sun reached its zenith, and apparently long before her Uncle as well.
Her annoyance flared as she mulled over the series of events. First the horde of Grimm returns to the village, then we get separated, then my scroll breaks, then I get here and can't call for help, and then that bird-brain idiot of an uncle is—her thoughts cut at the sound of crunching metal and plastic. Glancing down at her clutched hand, Ruby watches pieces of her now crushed scroll spill from it. She slams the remains into the dirt, anger seeping through her and spilling out in the form of muted curses that her Uncle would be equally impressed and concerned by.
A splitting of wood followed by guttural growls snaps her attention to the edge of the clearing. Five beowolves pass through the brush, slowly stomping towards her. Ruby's anger partially recedes as she pulls out Crescent Rose. Good, she thought, if I had to stand here for one more second waiting for that fuc—no, need to focus, come on Ruby, it's just five beowolves. Easy. Simple. Ruby places the tip of her scythe in the dirt, aiming down its sight at the lead beowolf. Four rounds, five beowolves. Ruby contemplates for a moment before firing at the lead beowolf, the bullet striking its head and the Grimm's body dissipating before it hits the ground.
Score! With a wolfish grin, Ruby picks up her scythe as the remaining beowolves charge towards her with howls of rage. Quickly readying her weapon, she dashes forward to the two closest to her. A burst of her semblance sends Ruby behind the Grimm on her right. She hefts the barrel of her gun behind her and fires, momentum carrying through Crescent Rose and bisecting the Grimm. As it falls and dissipates, Ruby spins and cuts off a leg of the second Grimm.
Before she can bring her weapon around again to finish it, one of the remaining beowolves tackles her. They collapse on the dirt floor, fighting and rolling until Ruby ends up on her back. Drawing from her half-remembered lessons from her mentor, Ruby frantically pushes Aura to her hands and arms. Throwing them up, she grabs onto the beowolf's maw as it eagerly snaps at her head.
Where are you, where are you, where—ah! Ruby spots her weapon . . . several feet away from where she's struggling for her life. Okay, new plan, time to try out Uncle Qrow's idea. The Grimm continues to snap at her head as Ruby squirms and positions her legs under the Grimm's chest. Ruby pushes more aura into her arms and legs, and, with a grunt of effort, shoves the beowolf's head up while kicking out with her legs. The kick sends the Grimm onto its back, not far enough away but thankfully off of her. Ruby scrambles up, just barely dodging a swipe from the Grimm's claws as she dashes towards Crescent Rose. Swiftly grabbing her scythe, she tucks into a roll to avoid another swipe of the Grimm's claws.
Springing up, Ruby spins around and blindly swipes at the pursuing Grimm. She's rewarded with a whimper of pain and a shallow gash on her pursuer's outstretched arm. Ruby sucks in a few haggard breaths while backing away, the beowolf stalking towards her.
I can't let the other Grimm get behind me. Ruby begins to tear her eyes away, but the beowolf's howl brings her attention forward. As their eyes lock, the anger from earlier churns inside her. It's my first real mission and I nearly got taken out by a beowolf. A beowolf! It couldn't be something cool like a Goliath or a Death Stalker. No no no, I had to have my first (okay, technically second but I don't count the first one!) near-death-experience-caused-by-Grimm come from something I've killed, like, a hundred times already! The anger slips into rage as it reaches a boiling point, and she snarls at the Grimm. The Beowolf responds in kind, growling behind bared teeth as it charges towards her. Ruby brings her scythe behind her, waiting for the Grimm to close the gap. As it brings a clawed hand up, Ruby ducks under the Grimm's arm and dashes towards its back.
With rage clouding her mind, she forgoes firing her rifle. Instead, Ruby rams the pointed end of her scythe into the Grimm's body, breaking through one arm and embedding the weapon halfway through its torso. As the beowolf roars in pain, the Grimm brings its other hand around to swipe at her. Ruby grips the handle tighter and rips the blade out with a yell. The beowolf's arm goes limp as it falls to the ground.
Ruby takes in a few deep, haggard breaths, picking up her scythe and glancing around the clearing. Where are the other two beowolves? Did Uncle Qrow fina— A crunching of bone pulls Ruby's attention towards her right. A large, grotesque beast stands halfway between her and the forest's edge. The headless body of one of the beowolves lies on the ground at its feet, with the head still clutched in one of the monster's clawed hands. The beast drops the head as it turns around.
Bone plates on its legs but metal covering most of its chest and face. Right arm is a patchwork of metal plates that ends at a stump connected to a claw-like appendage with talons almost the size of my arm. The other arm has small metal spikes down to its hand, connected by small tubes weaving up the arm and to its back. Dam—dang it, I saw its back before it turned around, what was on it . . . something colorful? Ruby continued going over her memory, her frustration building as she couldn't pin down what she saw.
Her thoughts come to an abrupt stop. Wait . . . that's a Grimm, she realizes. Squinting, she can make out the face of a wolf encased in metal. It's as tall as an Alpha Beowolf but it looks . . . so . . . wrong.
Ruby scrunches up her face in fury. Awesome, perfect, just amaaaaazing. It's not like this mission was going to get any easier. Might as well add in what looks like a super-powered mutant Grimm that I've never seen or heard of before.
The longer she stares, the more she realizes how wrong it is, how disgusting the thing looks, how insulting its mere existence is. Every second she continues staring is just another she should be using to rip it apart, to tear it to pieces, to eviscerate it, to use her hands to . . . Ruby's mind spirals into darker, more violent thoughts as her grip tightens on her weapon. Crescent Rose groans in protest, her grip threatening to snap it in two.
The beast itself had stayed still from the moment it had turned around after killing the last beowolf. It didn't growl or twitch as Ruby's mind flittered from examining it to devolving into threats of pain and promises of suffering. A few more seconds passed before it surged forward, moving faster than the beowolves Ruby fought earlier. In a heartbeat, it closes the gap between them, swinging its taloned hand at her. Ruby recovers enough to barely dodge the swipe with her semblance. The monster's claws gouge the earth, sending dirt flying everywhere.
Sputtering and spitting out some of the dirt that got in her mouth, she wipes her eyes and sends the beast a baleful glare. Another swipe of its talons sends more dirt flying, and again Ruby narrowly avoids it with the help of her semblance. Faster than its previous attacks, the beast brings its taloned arm up into the air and swings down at her. Ruby is forced to throw herself backward, just barely avoiding the talons as they spear into the ground. The monster tugs at the claws, but they remain stubbornly embedded in the dirt.
Quickly positioning her scythe behind her, Ruby fires. The blade of her weapon sailed through the air and down on the shoulder of the arm stuck in the ground. Moving even faster than before, the beast throws its other arm into the path of her scythe. The blade cuts part of its hand and some of the tubing before slamming into the dirt beside its other arm. The monster tugs harder this time and rips its claws out of the stubborn earth. The force of it sends Ruby stumbling backward into a crouch.
Ruby pauses for a moment before pouring more of her aura into her semblance, this time using it to put distance between her and the beast. She takes the brief reprieve to catch her breath and think. The monster sends her what she swears is a pointed look before stalking towards her.
I can't keep this up, fighting through the Grimm in the village to get here and fighting those beowolves took me down to at least half my aura. Whatever it is, it's clearly smarter and more dangerous than an Alpha. It's too fast for me to dodge without using my semblance, and its attacks are clearly too strong to take head-on, but I can't waste my aura running away from every attack. I need to finish this quickly. By now, the beast had managed to close the distance to less than a third of what it had been when she retreated.
Think, think, think. The chest and face are protected, and its arms and legs are mostly covered in bone plates or metal. That leaves . . . nothing on the front, but what about its back?
Collapsing her scythe into rifle mode, Ruby charges towards the beast, using her semblance to avoid another swipe from its talons and appear behind it. Her eyes widen as she looks across the haphazardly arranged dust crystals jotting out of the creature's back. Jackpot. Throwing caution to the wind, Ruby aims her rifle at the largest crystal on its back. Just as she was about to fire, the beast twists its arm around, bending it over to bring its hand covered in metal implants down on her. Ruby fires at the arm, now close enough that she can see the tubes glowing an ominous red.
Sugar Honey Ic—a fiery explosion sends her flying across the clearing, ending with her slamming into a tree at the edge of the forest. The air is ripped from her lungs as she crumples against the tree. I can't feel my left hand, she realizes as a dull ache forms in her chest and spikes of pain flare throughout her body. Crescent Rose is forgotten as she works to stand up, coughing and sputtering from the effort.
The beast clambers up from where it fell, almost exactly where it had stood a moment ago. The arm with the metal implants is now gone, and most of the talons on the other are shattered. Despite one leg bent at an odd angle, it forces its weight on both legs. A quick glimpse at its back before it turns towards her shows marred flesh barely held together by metal embedded inside its body. Some of the metal on its face and chest has fallen off, revealing the stripped features of a beowolf.
It's not dead, Ruby seethes, her teeth grinding against each other as she grips her hands hard enough that her nails cut into her palms. She doesn't notice the dark blood coming from the wound, nor the red haze sliding over her vision. That bastard isn't dead, she growls as she laboriously stomps over to the beast. She stomps faster and faster, eventually breaking into a pounding charge as she growls louder at the creature, her wounds forgotten in her rage. The beast lifts its taloned hand up, bringing its remaining blades to slash down at her. She ignores the piercing pain in her shoulder, instead bringing her own hand down on the beast's remaining arm.
Her nails tear through its flesh, and the arm falls to the ground as the beast cries in pain. Ruby savors the sound and lunges for its face. She grips its neck with one hand, nails sinking deep into its unprotected flesh. She strikes the beast's head with her other hand, raking off the remaining bits of metal and flesh. The monster cries out in rage, and Ruby roars in response. She continues tearing into the creature's face and neck as it flails around, trying to dislodge her. The creature eventually collapses, its cries fading into gurgles as Ruby continues to slam and slash its head with her hands. Howling in delight, she brings another clawed hand dow—Ruby freezes, her hand hovering right above the beast's marred face.
It takes a herculean amount of effort to tear her ruby-tinged eyes away from her prey and towards her left hand. Instead of trimmed nails, her hand ends with sharp bones protruding from her fingers, the tips covered in a dark red ichor. Her gaze flows down her arm, taking in the black veins pulsating beneath the pale skin and fading beneath her sleeves.
"Huh," Ruby comments, her voice gravelly and throaty to her ears. "Do Grimm bleed?"
Exhaustion slams into her as her aura returns, forcing her to slam both arms down to support her body. The bone protrusions start to disintegrate, and the black veins begin to fade as she pants for breath. What little aura remains starts to work on the wounds on her fingers and shoulder. The rage and adrenaline slowly bleed out of her during the process. She sways before collapsing on top of the dissipating beast, her vision fading as she hears muffled shouts.
To say this was a failure would be an understatement. This . . . this was a disaster. The experiment she sent was one of only a few remaining experiments she had acquired over her decades-long journey. The worst part being that it was the strongest physically among them.
She knows she shouldn't be surprised by the outcome.
She knows everything about each experiment's strengths and weaknesses, having read the reports enough to recite them by heart.
She knows that each experiment is, technically, considered a failure in some way.
She knew that the experiment she sent had an unprotected back brimmed with dust that wasn't properly protected.
She knew the wiring on its arm was faulty and incomplete.
She knew that her efforts to fix both were shoddy at best.
She knew the chances of failure were not insignificant . . . and she had gone through with it anyway.
The woman stands up, slamming her hands on the table and jostling the computer monitor and the mug sat next to it. Worrying about it now would be pointless. I still have the other experiments, the treasure troves of research I've collected, and the devices I've reengineered from both.
The woman eyed the monitor in front of her, and the main subject is still alive. This . . . this is just a setback, a temporary upset that I will overcome. She lets out a long sigh as he sits down, her hands flying over the keyboard as the view on the monitor moves. The other drones had already returned, with the last one being a simple surveillance drone. She wasn't too concerned about it being seen, it was high enough in the air and had its own stealth unit active. The view eventually settles on three figures in a clearing. Two of them were prone and unmoving, with the third hovering above them, pacing back and forth.
Losing an experiment is unfortunate, but more importantly, the subject now knows I'm hunting them. Future attempts to acquire them will require more . . . planning. The woman hums as she takes a sip from her mug. Nevertheless, I must move forward. Progress demands sacrifice, and no sacrifice is too high for progress.
The view on the monitor shifts, showing a bullhead appear over the clearing before touching down. The woman lets out another, longer sigh as she stares at the ceiling.
"What would you have done differently, Dr. Merlot?"
Author Notes: *A lot of story points are explained here.*
I've been a reader in the fandom for almost a decade at this point, and this is likely the only story I'll publish. I have a few other ideas, but who knows when I'll get the time to write them. Even this took me a good few months to eek out, and I've had this idea in the chamber for a while. I'll explain a little bit of the background for this story, but I'll leave most of it vague just in case I come back to it.
I've seen plenty of stories where Ruby turns into a Grimm hybrid and this is my take on it. In this scenario, Ruby fought with, and gets infected by, a beowolf during initiation that was carrying a disease that's basically a fusion of Grimm essence and a regular disease. The Grimm disease is changing Ruby into a more suitable host (i.e. something like a Grimm). After an incident in Beacon, Ruby ends up shadowing her Uncle on a mission and you've read how that goes.