Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been such a nice day.

The first autumn leaves were beginning to fall, and Tai had taken Yang into the village, so Summer and Ruby had the house to themselves. Summer loved her husband and elder daughter, but quite moments with her youngest came few and far between, so she'd learnt to appreciate every one.

When did it all go to hell?

Smoke filled Summer's lungs as flames licked at her aura. One moment she was playing with Ruby on the floor, the next she'd been thrown across the lounge of her small house by what could only have been an exploding dust crystal.

But Summer was a huntress, and it was going to take more than that to keep her down. Her aura flared as it healed the bruising that had begun to form where she hit the wall and she got up, scanning what remained of the room for any sign of her child.

"Ruby?" She sputtered, choking on the growing smoke as she ran to where her daughter had been playing. "Petal, where are you?"

Ruby was only two and had been slow to talk, but Summer didn't need her to talk, just a cry would be enough.

And cry Ruby did.

Summer's silver eyes cut through the smoke as her head snapped in the direction of her baby's cry. Ruby was trapped against the wall by a collapsed section of the ceiling.

Summer allowed herself a small sigh. Crying was better than silence, and where Ruby was trapped was not yet burning. She could work with this. Rescuing a child from a burning building was hardly out of the ordinary for a huntress, even if it being her own child added an extra layer of stress.

The sigh turned into a gasp as the warm blade of a sword appeared at her throat, its razor-sharp edge putting an uncomfortable pressure on her aura.

"What do you want?" Summer didn't allow her voice to waver as she began plotting her escape.

"You are a very valuable woman, Ms Rose." Replied Summer's assailant, her voice cool. "Top huntress in your year, an impressive streak of successful missions, not to mention your lovely eyes."

Summer felt the blade at her neck shift as her assailant made to face her. The attacker’s guard was only lowered for a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction too long.

Silver flashed from her eyes, washing out the hot glow of the fires for a moment as the power of her eyes filled Summer's body. In a single smooth motion, Summer ducked under the attacker's weapon, grabbed their arm, and flipped them onto their back near where Ruby was trapped.

The scene changing in a blink of an eye, Summer flicked her wrist to activate the gravity dust in the bracelet Tai had given her for their anniversary, summoning her weapon Phoenix Rose from where it had fallen in the explosion. She caught the sniper rile in her hand and squeezed a lever hidden in the handle, activating the mecha-shift, and transforming it into a spear.

She pointed the tip of the weapon at her assailant’s throat, getting her first look at the woman.

The woman was young – she’d probably still be at one of the academies if she was a huntress, Summer thought – with an average height and slim build. She had pale skin, fiery amber eyes, and wore a tight red dress with golden accents.

"What do you want?"

Most people who knew Summer thought her name was rather apt. She was bright, happy, and carefree like a midsummer's day.

But she was also a Rose, and she had her thorns. Based on the way her attacker shrank away from her question, Summer knew her voice carried every one of them.

The attacker clenched their fists around some rubble on the floor as they did their best to regain their composure.

"My name is Cinder, and my employer has been very eager to recruit somebody with your particular… talents." The woman said slowly, choosing their words carefully.

"Salem."

Cinder nodded, smirking.

"I'll never join her."

Cinder's smirk turned dangerous.

"Don't worry, it's not you I'm here for." She turned to where Ruby was trapped, watching as the flames started to creep closer to the child. "Such lovely eyes."

Smoke stung at Summer's silver eyes as they widened in shock.

She opened her mouth, as if to beg, only to narrow her eyes and thrust her spear at Cinder's throat, attacking in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, in a world with aura, a stab to the throat was not enough to guarantee her daughter's safety. Cinder's aura deflected the blow, and she threw the debris she'd been gripping at Summer as it burst into flame – super heated curtesy of her semblance.

Summer flipped her cloak to block the flaming debris as she moved to place herself between Cinder and Ruby.

Cinder took advantage of the distraction to leap to her feet and draw her own weapons, a pair of glass swords that seemed to form out of nothing in her hands. She knocked Phoenix Rose away from her throat with the blade in her left hand as she thrust the one in her right at Summer.

That wouldn't be enough to break Summer's defences however, as she used the momentum of Cinder's parry to spin her spear in her hands, catching Cinder's thrust with the shaft. Her instincts told her to use the parry as a chance to jump back and unload a few rounds from Phoenix Rose's rifle mode into the other woman's chest, but the burning house was too small for such a move to be truly effective.

Not to mention she'd effectively be abandoning her daughter to do it.

Instead, she kept building momentum on her spear, spinning it around her body before attempting to bring the shaft down on Cinder's head – only for it to be caught between the girl's blades. Cinder smirked as their eyes locked, and kicked Summer in the stomach, throwing her to the ground.

Summer was no martial artist – Tai had always been the brawler on team STRQ – but she'd picked up a few tips from her husband over the years. As she fell, she caught herself on the floor with her hands and redirected her momentum into a sweep, knocking Cinder's legs out from under her.

"You're outmatched, kid." Summer said as she rose back to her feet. "Stay down."

Cinder's smirk didn't fade as she fell near where Ruby was trapped.

"No, I don't think I am."

Cinder reached out and grabbed the wooden beam that had pinned Ruby – one of the few left that weren't actively burning – and activated her semblance. The wood superheated in an instant, bursting into flames and pumping even more dirty smoke into the room.

Cinder rolled aside as Summer barrelled past her and knelt in front of her daughter.

"I'm here Ruby, don't worry, I'll get you out."

Summer wedged her fingers under the beam, ignoring the flames licking at her arms and the smoke filling her lungs as she lifted it off her daughter.

"Come on Ruby -" Summer coughed "- come to Mummy."

Ruby cried. She knew what her mummy wanted her to do, but her legs wouldn't listen to her. All they did was hurt, so Ruby cried.

Summer winced as the flames finally broke her aura, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. She lifted the beam higher, supporting it on her shoulder and cringing as it started to burn her face. With her hands now free she reached forward and grabbed Ruby as gently as she could, trying her hardest not to hurt her clearly injured leg.

As soon as her daughter was safe in her arms, Summer dropped the beam from her shoulder and held her close.

"It's okay Ruby, I'm here, you're sa-"

Summer's words caught in her throat as a glass blade pierced through her chest – just missing the baby in her arms.

"Don't worry." Cinder cooed as she took Ruby from the dying woman's arms. "I'll take good care of her."

Summer made one last reach for her daughter as she dropped to her knees, blood pooling at her feet.

"Well done." A maniacal voice cackled from the door. "You stole a baby from a dying woman."

Cinder turned to the door.

"Tyrian? What are you doing here?"

"There's been a… change of plans." The scorpion faunus snickered as he stalked through the burning house, seemingly entirely unbothered by the smoke.

"What are you-"

Cinder's vision went black as Tyrian's stinger struck, his tail curling around her in a way that would make most people squeamish to bury the stinger in her back.

Tyrian ripped his tail out of Cinder's back, the violent jerk throwing the unconscious woman to the ground and sending baby Ruby tumbling out of her arms. Perhaps fortunately for the child, Tyrian's tail wrapped around her ankle before she hit the floor, yanking her out of the air in a manner that could only have been mildly better than just falling.

He grabbed the girl in his hands and held her up to his eyes as though he were a connoisseur inspecting a piece of fine jewellery. Ruby flailed her arms in front of her, trying to grab the funny man's face and inspect him back, but they were too short to reach.

Tyrian cackled gleefully.

"Oh yes, you'll make a fine daughter for our Goddess!"

Tyrian skipped as he carried the child out of the house, dragging Cinder's still form out with his tail. He was stopped just passed the front door by Ruby pulling on his collar.

He looked down at his Goddess' new daughter - and therefore his adoptive Goddess-to-be, he pondered? - and found as he stared into her shiny silver eyes there was nothing she could ask of him that he would not do.

She waved at a flowerbed that had been constructed by the front door, in which grew five rose bushes with perfect snow-white flowers - the petals of which had not even thought about wilting, despite the growing inferno mere feet away. Ruby tried to grab at the flowers but was foiled once again by her tiny arms.

Tyrian could do only as his Goddess-to-be commanded, and so balanced Her in one hand and leant down and grabbed a rose by its stem with the other, ignoring the thorns that dug into his palms. He tried to cut it from the bush with his wrist-mounted blades but couldn't reach it without letting go of Her. No obstacle too great when his Goddess-to-be was concerned, Tyrian twisted the stem around and around, each rotation digging the thorns in further and further until the bush was covered in his blood.

Eventually, the stem was twisted free, the flower presented to his Goddess-to-be, and the remaining roses painted red.

The smell of smoke in the air should have tipped Taiyang off that something was wrong. It was a beautiful and warm late-summer day, there was no reason for Summer to use the fireplace, but Tai was too in his own head to question it as he followed his daughter up the path to their house.

Tai's arms were full of shopping bags – filled with presents and birthday treats for his younger daughter – as Yang ran ahead, excited to give Ruby the cookie in her hand. Her birthday wasn't for a few days, but everyone was excited. They were going to have a relatively small party – just the family – but it was going to be Ruby's first real party, no parents on hunts, no sick sister, just a celebration for the soon to be three-year-old.

Maybe Raven would even….

Tai had to pull himself out of that line of thought before it hurt too much. Raven had made her choice. She hadn't been there for her own daughter's birthday, there was no way she'd be there for Ruby's.

Yang's scream broke out Tai out of his own head. Thoughts of his first love tossed aside, he sprinted around the last bend in the path, only to nearly trip over his daughter where she'd fallen to her knees on the dirt road.

He let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. Yang had just tripped.

Then he looked up.

Chapter Text

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late?"

Ruby smirked into her magazine as the sound of a dust robbery drifted past her muted headphones. She had been worried Roman Torchwick would be running late, but clearly tardiness wasn’t amongst his sins tonight. The smirk quickly turned into a grimace as the obnoxious smell of a cigar invaded her nose. She'd never liked the smell of smoke; it reminded her too much of her nightmares.

Of her.

The amber-eyed woman who stole her mother from her.

Ruby touched a hand to the white rose stitched over her heart, forcing herself to refocus her thoughts. She was on a job – she couldn't allow herself to get distracted.

"Alright kid, put your hands where I can see 'em." A masculine voice demanded behind her.

Although apparently that had been distraction enough.

Ruby didn't bother turning around. Before he could ask again, she drew Crescent Rose from behind her back, knocking whoever Roman had hired as muscle down as she clubbed their legs with the sniper-scythe – still folded into its storage configuration.

She pivoted on the stool she'd been sitting on and saw the goon groaning on the ground. Part of a local gang, she was guessing – he certainly didn't look like a member of any of Remnant's major criminal syndicates.

Ruby stood and triggered the mecha-shift on her weapon. The mechanical whirring and gentle grind of well-oiled steel components gliding against each other was music to her ears, grounding her in a similar way to the flower on her breast. The shift ended with the razor-sharp blade emerging from the back of the scythe, the dim shop lights glinting off its polished surface.

Crescent Rose was hungry, and her baby was going to taste blood tonight.

She grabbed the dazed thug by the collar, hauled him off the ground – thanks largely to Hazel's strength training – and carried him with her as she used her semblance to burst at the store's big display window. She used the man as a human shield, shattering the glass plate with his body. With so much of the glass ending up in his body instead of falling to the sidewalk outside, it was a surprisingly quiet experience.

Well… apart from his screams.

Those stopped when she dropped the goon in the pile of bloody window fragments.

"Okay…" She heard Roman drawl inside the dust shop.

He gestured at his remaining thugs.

"Get her." She thought she heard him sigh, like he couldn’t believe he had to tell them.

Ruby turned and faced the goons as they charged through the broken window, awkwardly stepping around their unconscious-at-best comrade. She rested Crescent Rose gently on her shoulder like it didn't way as much as her, daring them to challenge her.

The five goons wielded red-bladed swords, no doubt trying to emulate the much more fearsome dust crystal blades found on such notorious weapons as Omen. Maybe it would convince the old man behind the counter, but anyone with a passing knowledge of experimental and highly deadly dust applications would see right through it.

Then again, the old man behind the counter ran a dust store, so maybe it wouldn’t even fool him.

As the first goon stepped into her range, Ruby exploded into a blur of petals. She rematerialized behind him, back to the first goon and facing the other four. Her scythe trailed behind her, catching the first around his legs. She fired the sniper rifle built into the shaft and used the recoil to launch it into a swing and tripping the first goon in the process.

He'd clearly had some aura training, because the blade to the shins and tarmac to the face simply left him in a groaning pile on the ground and not a bloody mess.

Ruby's swing carried through to the two goons she was now facing, who had been following the first. The leftmost thug attempted to block the scythe with his sword, but only managed to buy himself a second to try and duck the blade.

Try being the operative word, as the scythe collided with his head mid-duck. His aura prevented a full decapitation, but from the snapping sound Ruby doubted he'd walk again.

He did, however, succeed in shielding the rightmost goon, as his head slowed down Crescent Rose enough for his companion to jump back out of the scythe's range. Deciding melee combat against a scythe was a deadly mistake, the goon pulled out his handgun and fired several rounds at Ruby's chest.

Ruby fired her own rifle once again to build up her weapon’s momentum, this time directing it into spinning the scythe in front of her, catching the bullets on Crescent Rose's aura reinforced steel body. The incoming fire deflected, Ruby leapt forward, the spinning of her scythe translating into a powerful upward slash that picked up the goon and threw him into the air. He seemed to float for a moment before landing on a goon behind him, shattering both of their auras.

The fifth and last of Roman's henchmen watched as a young girl – clearly no older than fifteen – took apart his four fellow gangsters in a matter of seconds and made the only choice he could.

He dropped his weapons and ran.

Ruby watched as he ran down the street and smirked. Crescent Rose transformed in her hands, taking its sniper rifle form. In a single smooth motion, she raised the rifle to a firing position, lined up the man down the sights, and took her shot.

Ruby took immense satisfaction in watching the body drop in the distance.

"Worth every cent." Roman muttered from the remains of the shop's window.

Ruby scoffed. She was not reimbursing Roman’s expenses if these men were what he was spending her Lien on.

"Well, Red, I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening, and as much as I'd love to stick around…" Roman flicked his cane up, revealing a hidden barrel. "This is where we part ways."

Ruby rolled her eyes at Roman's theatrics as he fired a dust round from the cane. Dodging it with her semblance, Ruby turned to the shopkeeper peeking out from the broken window.

"You okay?"

The old man nodded, not that Ruby noticed as she chased Roman up a nearby fire escape. Landing silently on the roof, the cane wielding crook didn't seem to notice her.

"You know Roman, considering how much I'm paying you, I wouldn't think that you'd need to skim dust off the top."

Ruby watched as Roman paused in what she could only assume to be a wince. Recovering quickly, he turned on his heels and projected as much confidence as he could manage.

"Red. I must say you aren't what I was expecting from our scroll calls."

Ruby raised an eyebrow as a Bullhead air-freighter rose to the edge of the roof. She caught a glance of the pilot through the windscreen, a woman with pink and brown hair, wearing a captain's hat – Neopolitan. The shorter woman winked at her.

“And what were you expecting, Roman?” She asked, not caring for his answer. She knew what he expected, and it wasn’t a fifteen year old girl in a skirt. Tyrian had her use those expectations to her advantage more than once. “I’m paying you handsomely for your services. I expect the dust I ordered, when I ordered it. Otherwise, we might need to have a little… chat about your future employment.”

Roman shivered, and it wasn’t from the – admittedly cold – wind being stirred up by the Bullhead. He was a professional, and in his professional opinion this girl was terrifying. It wasn’t just her weapon – Junior’s men really weren’t exactly a great measure of combat potential – but the way she carried herself, the utter certainty that she was the one holding his leash. She was dangerous.

His career necessitated a healthy self-preservation instinct, and Red was sending them all into overdrive.

Of course, Roman was no slouch either, and he dealt with dangerous people all the time. He didn’t run an organisation – he and Neo were more the lone wolf types – but no crook worked alone. It was that experience that allowed him to so quickly regain his composure after Red’s threat.

Composure that allowed him to shut his mouth as a huntress landed in-between him and Red before he accidentally spilled all their evil plans to the riding crop wielding do-gooder. She flicked her crop in his direction, sending some kind of debris flying his way.

Brothers hunters were annoying to deal with. Roman fancied himself a decent fighter, but without a semblance there was very little he could do about the random bullshit a trained hunter could throw his way.

Standing behind the huntress, leaning on her scythe, Red gave him a little wave, which was all the signal he needed to get out of there.

"We got a huntress!" He called to Neo.

The huntress – Glynda Goodwitch, Ruby recognised after a moment – waved her crop with a flourish, her aura channelling a vial of dust into a low-hanging storm cloud that knocked the Bullhead around, throwing Roman to the floor of its cargo hold.

Roman staggered back to his feet and fired his cane-gun in the vague direction of the huntress. The dust round exploded at Ruby's feet – she'd remember that, even if his aim had just been thrown off by the storm cloud – but she was thrown out of harm's way by another force. Goodwitch's semblance most likely, Arthur's intelligence suggested she possessed the power of telekinesis.

Spared from the explosion thanks to Roman's poor aim, Goodwitch fired back, sending a volley of dust-formed rocks into the side of the Bullhead with a forceful jab of her riding crop. Roman was thrown from his feet yet again.

Ruby couldn't bring herself to care for his struggles.

In the cockpit, Ruby saw the captain's hat shatter into shards above Neo's head. Ruby recognised the sign of one of her illusions breaking, presumably because she’d formed a new one – and she had a pretty good idea what the new one would be.

She counted to five under her breath while Goodwitch watched Roman, making sure he didn't get back up. Once her count was complete, Ruby aimed Crescent Rose and fired a single shot at the Bullhead.

Neo's illusion shattered into shards that slowly twinkled away as the Bullhead was revealed to have already escaped, the few seconds of flight more than enough to take it well out of Goodwitch's range.

Ruby's too, but she wasn't planning on actually stopping Roman. Just putting him in his place.

Goodwitch let out a small sigh as the criminal got away. Ultimately, law enforcement fell under the jurisdiction of the police – not hunters – but that didn't make it any less disappointing. She turned to the teen that had gotten herself caught up in the mess, only to come face to face with wide, excited silver eyes.

"You're a huntress! Can I have your autograph?"

"I hope you realise that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, young lady. You put yourself and others in great danger."

Goodwitch paced around the dark room Ruby had been taken to after the fight. In her hand she had a tablet, playing a security recording of the fight – thankfully free of audio.

Ruby's first instinct was to say they had started it, but – considering she had paid them to do it – that line of questioning probably wouldn’t have ended well.

"They were trying to rob the store! I just wanted to stop them."

"I'm sure the proprietor of From Dust 'til Dawn appreciates the broken window he got instead."

Ruby huffed. She was pretty sure that was cheaper than the dust she'd incidentally saved, and she was also pretty sure Goodwitch wouldn't want to hear it.

"If it were up to me, you'd be sent home with a pat on the back." Ruby couldn't help but beam. She wasn’t exactly starved for affection by her mentors, but she was under no illusion that she got as much as the average fifteen-year-old. Salem’s servants tended to operate on intense – although not always harsh – criticism and the occasional nod of approval.

Well except Tyrian. Ruby had been ‘learning’ from Tyrian for nearly a decade and even she couldn’t begin to describe his ever changing blend of undying praise, unbridled enthusiasm, and murder.

"And a slap on the wrist." Goodwitch finished.

Ruby only just managed to get her hand out from under The Disciplinarian before it slapped the table with a crack that could rival a whip.

"However, there is someone here who would like to meet you."

Goodwitch stood aside to reveal a man in the doorway holding a tray of cookies and a mug of something steaming. He looked surprisingly young for a man with a head of stark grey hair, which contrasted boldly with his dark black and green suit.

Ruby had to fight the urge to reach for her weapon when she saw the man who could only be the headmaster of Beacon Academy. She didn’t think he was a bad man necessarily – although she could hardly rule it out considering the way all her mentors, Salem and Hazel especially, talked about him. No, Ozpin simply represented everything Ruby had strived all her life to change. The head of a broken and corrupt system that was at best ignorant to her mother’s death and at worst complicit. A system too focused on threats like the grimm to care for the suffering and inequalities within itself.

But a symbol was ultimately just a symbol, and it wouldn't do for Ruby to draw suspicion to herself for no good reason.

Professor Ozpin put down the tray in front of her – the cookies as enticing as ever – and met her eyes. His stare was… probing, for lack of a better word. It held no air of hostility, but she couldn't help but feel like that one look had told him every little detail of her life.

"You… have silver eyes."

"Uhh…"

Her eyes? Here he was, the all-powerful Ozpin, presumably here to interrogate her about the crime she paid to cause and then stopped, and he was talking about her eyes?

She was beginning to see why no-nonsense Arthur Watts found him so agitating.

"So! Where did you learn to do this?" Ozpin asked, gesturing to the fight playing on Goodwitch's tablet with his mug.

"I'm self-taught." It was likely the most honest she’d be all night. While all her mentors – Hazel and Tyrian especially – were highly skilled fighters, none had any expertise with her chosen weapon. A weapon she had fallen in love with the moment she’s seen a scraggly looking huntsman chasing Hazel with one, all around a building they were meant to demolish. That had been a good day.

"You taught yourself to use one the most dangerous weapons ever designed?"

Ruby blushed. He thought her weapon was that dangerous? If he was thirty years younger and decidedly less male, she’d have thought he was flirting. Not that she had much experience in that regard. Living at Evernight left her with no companions her own age, and the rare times she met someone when she was taken out of the castle, they never stuck around long enough for anything to develop.

She took one of the cookies to calm herself.

And then another.

And another.

They were really good cookies.

Soon the entire tray had made its way into her mouth.

"Designed it myself too." She tried to say through the cookies, but all that came out were crumbs and mumbles.

 Embarrassed, she swallowed and repeated herself.

"Didn't really have the choice of a subtle option living outside of the kingdoms." She added.

One of the many reasons she loved her precious Crescent Rose.

"So I've noticed." Ozpin said, eyeing the rather excessive violence the screen displayed. "And what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing stopping robberies in a kingdom that’s not her home?"

"It's my job." Ruby answered simply.

"You want to be a huntress?" Ozpin asked, thankfully missing the actual meaning behind her statement.

"I lost my mother at a young age." Ruby told him. "I don't want anyone else to go through that, and if that means becoming a huntress so be it."

Ozpin nodded. Loss was a common enough reason to choose such a life.

"Do you know who I am?"

"You're Professor Ozpin, headmaster of Beacon Academy."

"Indeed. And you are…"

"Ruby Rose."

That gave Ozpin more pause than any of her other answers. He recovered quickly, but Ruby noticed it all the same.

"Greetings, Miss Rose. You wish to be a huntress?"

Ruby nodded.

"How would you like a place at my school?"

Once the details of her enrolment had been sorted, Ruby left Ozpin and Glynda to return to Beacon and ponder its new youngest student.

"Are you sure it's wise not to contact Tai?" Glynda asked as they arrived in Ozpin's office.

"Franky, I'm not." Ozpin replied, sitting behind his desk. "But the loss of Summer and Ruby destroyed the man. I'd hate to give him or his daughter false hope when we don't have proof."

"Don't have proof?" Glynda raised an eyebrow. "She's practically a carbon copy of Summer at that age."

"We'll run a blood test to be sure once the term begins – call it a part of standard check-ups."

Ozpin took a sip of his hot chocolate.

"Besides, I'm more curious about where exactly Miss Rose has been these past 13 years." He said.

Glynda took a seat across from Ozpin.

“You noticed too then?” Glynda asked. “Her answers didn’t quite seem to line up.”

Glynda didn’t know what she was thinking. Of course Ozpin had noticed.

"Quite." He agreed. "However, that is not necessarily uncommon for those raised outside of the kingdoms – take Miss Belladonna for example, or Miss Valkyrie and Mr Ren. Hunters come from all walks of life, and I’m not going to turn her away because she wasn’t willing to share everything with a pair of strangers."

He paused for a moment.

"Of course, if there is more to her story, there is no better way to keep an eye on her than as a student as Beacon."

Chapter Text

Ruby had always liked airship rides.

She hadn't disliked Evernight. It was her home, and all the people she cared about lived there. While it saying it had a grimm problem would have been putting it lightly, as grimm got closer to the castle tended to be more docile, the presence of their queen seeming to have a calming effect. Plus, the ones that were aggressive made for excellent training.

However, Evernight was rather isolating. It was large and it was empty. Housing only Salem's closest allies, and the occasional guest or prisoner, Ruby didn't have much of a chance to meet new people. When she did meet someone in the castle, it was invariably in the service of Salem's goals. Tutors, instructors, trainers. All people making the one-way trip to Evernight to mould her into Salem's perfect infiltrator.

She had honed her body into the perfect tool for revenge, but it had cost her social life.

She'd pay that price a hundred times if she had to.

All to see her die.

But that wasn't always the case. Sometimes, her training had her leave Evernight, following another of Salem's inner circle on one of their missions. Sometimes they would meet with bandit tribes and supply them in exchange for the tribe raiding beneficial targets – that was how she'd gotten to meet Omen and its fearsome wielder. Sometimes they'd be sneaking around the kingdoms, stealing secrets, conducting backroom deals, and planning accidents for disagreeable politicians.

It wasn't always fun, she was brought along to learn after all, they weren't holidays. But they were different. Exciting. She wasn't confined to the spacious, empty halls of Evernight. She could meet new people, people her own age.

There was the chance she'd find her.

Those trips out into the wider world were the highlights of her childhood, and they always began on an airship.

Currently, Ruby was standing by a window on a large passenger airship, enroute to Beacon Academy. She'd been in Vale a couple times before, scouting out local talent with Hazel and tying up a loose end with Tyrian – not to mention the last couple weeks she'd been stationed in Vale, setting up her first long-term solo operation. However, none of those trips had involved a trip to Beacon – as deep into enemy territory as she could possibly get – and had done nothing to prepare her for the phenomenal view afforded by the airship ride to the Academy.

Vale didn't have an iconic skyline. It didn't have Vacuo's pyramid academy. It wasn't built into the side of a mountain like Mistral. It wasn't floating above the rest of the world like Atlas.

No, Vale was a reasonably flat coastal city. Even Beacon, situated on a cliff above the city proper, was too far away to get a particularly good view. The only place to really take in the city and its coast was from above.

And what a view it was. Compared to the other kingdom's capitals, Vale was an incredibly green city. Lots of flat space meant the city had plenty of room for parks, fields, and gardens. Evergreen's lined many of the streets, and Vale's large central river was flanked by drooping willows. Vale's love of the arts extended into its architecture – the view was dotted with elegant and stylish public buildings, such as the city hall and central library. The island of Patch – which at ground level just peeked out over the horizon – could be seen almost in its entirety.

But by far the feature that drew the most attention was Beacon Academy. It's central tower – host to Vale's CCTS tower among other things – rose high above the rest of the campus. The rest of the buildings were arranged into concentric rings around the main tower in such a manner that left plenty of space for wide open courtyards dotted with trees and water features.

The academy was beautiful, but Ruby couldn't help but feel uneasy looking at it. Not just because she was flying into enemy territory, although that hardly helped. It was what Beacon – all the hunter academies – represented. Ozpin liked to pretend that his strongholds produced noble heroes, but for every honourable hunter Beacon trained, there was another self-interested scumbag, only interested in their own power.

She was one of those scumbags.

Ruby idly noticed a blonde girl – probably a year or two older than her – step up to the window beside her. She paid the girl no mind as she continued to ruminate on Beacon.

Because the thing was, she didn't hate Beacon – she couldn't. As broken as the system was, hunters held a special place in her heart. Her mother had been a huntress, Ruby knew. Phoenix Rose, her mother's weapon, was proudly displayed in Evernight's small memorial to the woman, and it was undoubtably the weapon of a huntress. She'd even trained at Beacon; Hazel had told her once.

Ever since she'd realised that, Ruby had wanted to be a huntress herself. She'd tried to hide it at first – hunters were the soldiers of the enemy, after all – but eventually Salem found out. For some reason though, instead of… discouraging the idea Salem had been nothing but supportive. It wasn't until a lesson with Arthur years later that she had realised why. A student huntress would be the ideal person to infiltrate Beacon.

After all Salem had done for her, infiltrating Beacon and fulfilling one of her own dreams in the process was the least she could do.

Yang excused herself from her circle of friends and wandered over to the airship's large windows. She stood by a smaller, younger looking girl in a red cloak and watched the city pass below her. Much like her partner in silent observation, Yang focused on the academy they were approaching.

Here it was. Beacon Academy. The place she'd put so much work into getting into.

Most people, even some of her closest friends, didn't see Yang as the kind of person to put in the level of study needed to get into such a prestigious Academy. She couldn't really fault them, her reputation as a fun-loving and relaxed person hadn't exactly been an accident, and her natural aptitude to combat certainly hadn't hurt her enrollment chances. But Yang had known about Beacon's reputation for years, and she'd spent much of her time at Signal studying late into the night, doing everything she could to give herself the best odds of acing the entrance exam.

She needed to go to Beacon.

She didn't know why exactly, but she knew she needed to go.

Some people, her father for one, thought it had to do with her family. She'd lost two mothers and a sister very young, and both of her mothers – even if Summer was the only one who deserved the title – had been huntresses. Taiyang, among others, thought that it was a way to get closer to the women she'd lost.

They weren't wrong. Summer had been her role model before the fire, and that certainly played a part in her need to go to Beacon. But it wasn't the whole story.

Some people, her friends for example, had thought it was her need for thrills. When she wasn't studying – which was often enough, she'd always managed to maintain a healthy balance, at least in her own mind – she was the heart of the party. She was always looking for the next stunt, the next spectacle to one-up herself. And in Remnant there was no greater thrill than grimm-fighting, at least for those so inclined.

They weren't wrong either. She loved the rush, the excitement, the thrills, and the life of a huntress was never dull. But that wasn't why she wanted to be a huntress, not truly.

Some people – well, Uncle Qrow at least – thought it had to do with Raven. The mother she'd lost without the woman dying. Once, when she was much younger, Qrow had needed to save her from a den of beowolves because she'd foolishly decided to set off on her own to find Raven. She'd never given up on the idea of finding her mother, but she hadn't taken it into her own hands in quite the same way since then.

He wasn't wrong. She desperately wanted to find Raven, wanted to demand answers. If being a huntress meant she'd have an easier time finding her, then all the better. But even that wasn't the truth, not fully.

The truth was Yang didn't know why she needed to go to Beacon, needed to become a huntress. There was a fire that burned hot and deep inside her, a drive that wouldn't yield for anything.

But why?

Yang had no idea.

Every reason she'd ever come up with – and she'd come up with a great many over the years of trying to answer the question – just felt like icing on top.

Sighing, her eyes caught a glimpse of a reflection in the window. She hadn't gotten a good look at the girl she now stood next to on her way over to the window, her large red cloak obscured her from behind. The reflection though, showed a different sight. The girl was on the smaller side, and had softer features that implied she might be a bit younger than Yang. Her most notable feature, however, were her piercing grey eyes.

Yang made eye contact through the reflection – just for a moment – and flinched.

Those were Summer's eyes.

Ruby's eyes.

She composed herself quickly and sighed. Grey eyes always reminded Yang of her mother – her real mother – and sister. Patch was a small town, and she didn't come across many people with that eye colour in her day-to-day life.

Just enough that it hurt every time.

Her thoughts turned to her sister. Somehow, those always hurt more than thinking about her mothers. Ruby was her baby sister – Yang was meant to look after her, and she failed. Logically, Yang knew it wasn't her fault. There was no possible way it could be her fault.

That didn't stop her from thinking it though.

She wondered, not for the first time, what Ruby would do in her place. Would she know what drove her into this life? Would she even want to be a huntress? Yang thought she would. Her memories from that age were more than a little hazy – she'd only been five after all – but she distinctly remembered baby Ruby loving Summer's weapon. There had been more than once instance of someone having to take it away from Ruby after the girl had decided it made the perfect cuddle buddy.

Yang smiled. That memory never failed to cheer her up when she got too stuck in her own head. Her head cleared, she gave her silent partner a nod and wandered back to her friends, the pep in her step genuine.

Ruby nearly fainted when the airship eventually landed at Beacon.

She'd never seen so many unique weapons in one place. Salem's armouries had more of course, but those were all regular boring old swords and bows and such. Not the personally tailored, highly customized weapons favoured by hunters. She was yet to see another scythe – unsurprising considering their rarity – but she had seen several sniper rifles, and they'd given her a number of ideas she wanted to tinker with.

She probably wouldn't have time to do any of that tinkering before Ozpin's introductory speech – she'd been on one of the last airships scheduled to arrive – but that didn't mean she couldn't keep an eye out for the workshops. Embarrassingly, the infiltrator didn't know the layout of Beacon's campus. One of the many side effects of her mission suddenly being advanced two years.

There was a reason she'd arrived in Vale two years before her actual infiltration was due to begin – it took time to build a criminal empire. It seemed irrelevant to the mission at hand – infiltrating Beacon hardly required an empire, even if she had needed false transcripts. However, with Tyrian and Hazel working on locating the Fall Maiden, Ruby needed to be prepared to make a play on the Relic of Choice with very little notice. There was no telling how much of a window for action they'd have once the maiden was discovered, so Ruby needed her pieces ready before the board had been set.

And now that was in jeopardy, all because Ozpin had taken an interest in her. She couldn't build a network from Beacon, and there was no telling how easily she'd be able to get to Vale if she needed to put out a fire.

Let alone the jump's effect on the infiltration itself. No floor plans, no security routines, no false credentials or access keys. All things that could be gained in time, but all things that could cost her the mission if she tripped up in the early game.

Ultimately, it wasn't dire. She'd have to be more careful in the early months, sure. She could be careful. They might gain and lose the maiden before the Relic could be acquired, true. They could delay their plans, especially if she managed to place herself close to Ozpin.

All that the jump really meant was she was already in Ozpin's consideration.

It didn't make it any less stressful.

Somebody squealed.

Nor did it make Ruby any more observant.

One moment she'd been absent mindedly wandering Beacon campus, the next she was lying face up on the cement, her aura already healing her grazed palms. Somebody's luggage was scattered around her.

"What are you doing!?"

In her dazed state on the ground, Ruby thought the answer to that question would have been rather obvious. Yet it seemed to elude the shrill-voiced girl staring down at her.

The rather pretty, shrill-voiced girl staring down at her.

Maybe it was just because of how little experience she had with these sorts of things, but Ruby was pretty sure her cheeks weren't meant to feel quite this warm.

"Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused?"

As the shrill-voiced girl continued her tirade, Ruby felt her cheeks cool right back down. This girl was beyond full of herself.

Groggily, she stood up, leaning on one of the girl's many, many suitcases to do so.

"Sorry, sorry…" She mumbled as she regained her bearings.

The girl must not have heard her, because she kept up her tirade, waving a vial of red dust in Ruby's face to accentuate her points.

"You're sorry!? This is dust, you could have thrown us off the cliff with your clumsiness!"

Ruby wanted to argue that the math behind that definitely didn't add up unless the girl had packed a frankly ludicrous amount of dust into each case, but she found it hard to focus on the conversation. On top of everything – her mission, the fall, the annoyingly pretty and pretty annoying girl yelling at her – she could feel a sneeze building in her nose. It took her a moment to realize why, before she saw a small cloud of dust starting to form around the vial the girl was shaking at her.

Ruby sneezed.

The cloud of dust – incredibly pure based on how reactive it was – detonated.

Both girls were left blinking ash out of their eyes as what was left of the vial flew out of the girl's hand and across the courtyard.

"This is exactly what I saw talking about!" The formerly white-haired girl yelled.

"How is this my fault?" Ruby challenged, the explosion finally shocking her out of her slightly confused state. "The way I remember it, you were the one waving around a cracked vial of fire dust, Princess."

As she said it, her clearer head finally allowed her to notice just how familiar the girl was. She didn't think she was someone she'd met before – even dazed Ruby was sure she'd have remembered that – but something about her still seemed familiar. Her stark white hair, piercing blue eyes, affinity for dust…

"It's heiress, actually."

Ruby managed to avoid the urge to facepalm. Weiss Schnee. How could she not recognize Weiss Schnee? Watts was a family friend – she'd been with him to visit Schnee Manor before.

She looked up to the new voice. Another vaguely familiar girl, this one clad in a black and white ensemble, topped by a black bow in her hair. The new girl was holding Weiss's lost vial in one hand and holding her place in a book with the other.

"Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellent in the world." The girl finished.

"Finally, some recognition."

When she'd visited Schnee Manor, Ruby had only met Jacques briefly, but even just these two small interactions were enough for her to tell that this smugness was genetic.

"The same company infamous for its controversial…"

The new girl drifted off mid-sentence as she met Ruby's eyes. Ruby could have sworn the girl's bow twitched as a look of fear passed over her face- although it only lasted a moment. Why on Remnant would a random Beacon student fear Ruby? Sure, she'd done some fear-worthy things on missions before, but there was no reason a random student would know about those. Unless…

Ruby glanced back at the girl's bow.

This girl was with the White Fang.

Ruby pushed it out of her head as the girl recovered and finished her indictment of the Schnee Dust Company. By time she was done, her voice had picked up a bite that hadn't been present moments ago.

White Fang or not, this girl was definitely a faunus, the few humans that were aware of the SDC's crimes unfortunately tended not to care. Hiding her animal traits was an unusual choice if she was with the White Fang – they tended to flaunt them in a show of defiance – but Ruby wasn't about to out her.

Especially not to a Schnee.

A Schnee who was now sputtering incoherently.

"Wha- How dare- The nerve of… Ugh!"

The white-haired girl pivoted on her heels and stormed off, leaving a pair of attendants to collect her scattered suitcases and chase after her.

Ruby watched her leave and sighed. She really wished things had worked out better with the first student she'd talked to. She was finally going to live around people her own age, finally had the chance to make some friends, and she was already screwing it up.

Sure, Weiss didn't seem like the friendliest person, but Ruby couldn't help but feel like if she'd just been paying a little more attention, if she hadn't lost her cool, she might have made her first real friend.

Of course, the heiress wasn't the only person she'd just met.

"I guess I'm not the only one having a rough first day…"

Ruby drifted off as she realised that the other girl had already left, having run off in the opposite direction of the Schnee girl.

Ruby dropped back to the ground as the weight of her lacking social skills made her body feel heavy. The black-haired girl really had seemed familiar, but she couldn't figure out why she seemed to fear her so much. Even if she recognized Ruby from her visits to White Fang camps, that didn't truly explain the fear – they were working together after all.

She sighed again.

At this rate, she'd be lonelier at Beacon surrounded people her own age than she was wandering Evernight.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over her. A hand reached down, offering her help up.

"Hey, I'm Jaune."

Chapter Text

Talking with Jaune, as it turned out, was a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else Ruby had dealt with that day. He was nervous and awkward – he gave off the distinct impression he didn't belong at Beacon and knew it – but it meshed with Ruby's own awkwardness in such a way that they practically cancelled each other out.

He let her rave about weapons. She let him rave about Pumpkin Pete – a cereal mascot apparently. He didn't judge her obvious inexperience with people. She didn't judge his obvious inexperience with combat.

Talking with Jaune was easy, and by time they'd found the auditorium Ruby was pretty sure she'd made her first friend.

The pair made their way into the auditorium – getting only slightly lost on the way – and settled into the edge of the crowd. Neither felt the need to push closer to the front, Ruby was already feeling a little overwhelmed from the sheer number of bodies, and Jaune had seemed to pick up on her discomfort.

Ruby swept her eyes over the auditorium in a pattern she'd learnt from Tyrian – a more calculated killer than many realised. She started with the exits – there were two main ones most people would flock to in an emergency, plus a handful of smaller doors that'd serve her better if she needed to avoid the crowds.

Next was people. Following Tyrian's advice, she started with the stage and exits – where the most important and dangerous people were most likely to be. No one guarded the exits, it was only a school initiation after all, but standing by the stage were two of the strongest hunters currently active. Glynda Goodwitch and Ozpin himself – the same two hunters she'd met the other night. She'd expected them of course – their positions at the school practically demanded it – but that didn't make her any less nervous that they might have uncovered her true purpose at the school.

Her eyes then went to the crowd, scanning for potential allies and threats. She noticed Weiss Schnee standing next to the blonde-haired girl who'd watched the horizon with Ruby on the airship. The blonde was being far from subtle as she ran her eyes up and down the heiress. Pyrrha Nikos, a dominating force in the tournament scene, stood about halfway between the pair and herself. Finally, she noticed the secret-faunus girl from earlier, who'd taken up a spot on the far side of the room from Ruby and Jaune, also keeping away from the larger crowd. Her eyes were darting around the room almost as much as Ruby's.

Silver eyes met gold.

Ruby smiled at the girl.

The girl's eyes went wide and snapped away.

Maybe there was a chance the girl knew more than she should, but Ruby couldn't help but think she looked cute when she was flustered.

A cough reverberated through the room's speakers, drawing eyes to the stage. Ozpin had moved behind the microphone, with Goodwitch standing just beside him. He pushed his glasses up nose and leaned into the mic.

"I'll… keep this brief."

The man was a compelling orator, Ruby had to grant him that. His short speech lit a fire inside her, ignited that drive to follow her mother, to become a huntress and protect the people. It wasn't gentle necessarily, but it gave her a powerful kick in much the same way that her mother's own little speeches did – or rather, her adoptive mother's speeches.

Fitting, she supposed, considering their history.

Not many of her future classmates seemed to share Ruby's opinion. The room quickly filled with uncertain muttering; the prospective students unsettled by the headmaster's blunt words.

"Is he always like that?" Jaune asked, thinking aloud more than asking Ruby specifically.

Ruby hummed. She really didn’t get what the issue was.

"Like what?" She asked.

Jaune seemed to flounder a little trying to answer the question.

"Like that…" Jaune said, gesturing vaguely at the stage. "Intense, I guess?"

Intense was a good word for it, Ruby supposed, although it hadn’t been precisely how she described her mother. She preferred driven, passionate even. It certainly described Ozpin's little speech.

"I guess it was." She agreed, nodding. "Although, he wasn't really like that when he interog- interviewed me before Beacon."

Jaune stared at her.

"Ozpin interviewed you?"

Ruby stared back.

"Is that not normal?"

Jaune paused.

"I just submitted transcripts from my old school," he lied.

Ruby had to stop herself from raising an eyebrow. Jaune was not a good liar. At least, she supposed, he didn't accidentally blurt out whatever it was he was trying to hide. Not that it would have been too hard to guess, Ruby figured. There were only so many things surrounding a school enrolment that were worth covering up.

"I guess I don't know if that’s the normal way or not," he admitted after a moment. "How did you get in then?"

"Goodwitch caught me stopping an armed robbery a couple days ago." Ruby made sure to leave out that she also arranged said robbery. "Ozpin talked to me at the police station and offered me a spot at Beacon early."

Jaune was staring at her again.

"What?"

Jaune blinked at her.

"You stopped an armed robbery."

To his credit, Jaune's voice held no hint of disbelief. Rather, it carried a tone of horror, the horror of the sudden and Remnant-shattering realisation that one was in over their head, further out of their depth than they' ever been before.

Memories of Jaune not being able to fend off his sisters from stealing his desert flooded his mind. Memories that were only a week old.

Ruby had stopped an armed robbery before the first day of school.

"Uh, Jaune?"

Ruby broke Jaune out of his spiralling thoughts with a sharp flick to the forehead. He winced and shook his head, his growing feelings of inadequacy put aside for now.

"Sorry, what's going on?" He asked.

Ruby held back a snicker at her new friend's oblivious nature, carefully choosing not to remember getting so lost in her thoughts earlier in the day that she tripped over a bulk lot of dust.

"Goodwitch said we're spending the night in the ballroom." She answered, beckoning him to follow her. "Then we've got initiation tomorrow."

Blake had known running from the White Fang and leaving her whole life behind wasn't going to be an easy process. She'd known her anxiety would be spiking like crazy. She'd even known that she'd probably be on edge and jumping at shadows for weeks or even months while she got used to her new environment.

What she hadn't expected was for there to be someone in those shadows.

That isn't to say the White Fang was kind to deserters. They weren't, not by a long shot. But the general attitude was more along the lines of don't show your face here again unless you want a beating and less along the lines of we're going to hunt you down for betraying the cause.

In hindsight, maybe Blake should have expected some form of retribution. She was the last active Belladonna, and even ignoring that she was high enough ranked to be privy to more than a little bit of sensitive information. It only made sense to target her, either to make an example of her or to silence a potential leak.

She'd just hoped Adam might still care enough about her to let her leave in peace.

Blake wished she had been surprised that she was wrong.

Instead, she'd made her way to Beacon, only to be followed by…

Well, she wasn't entirely sure who.

That detail was the only reason she hadn't already run, escaped Beacon before the term started and she had something to lose. Her tail – the girl following her, not the fuzzy appendage so many humans wrongly assumed all cat faunus had – had appeared unannounced at a White Fang camp one day, shortly before Blake left and marched directly into Adams' tent like she’d owned the place.

She never learnt what exactly had gone down behind the flap of the tent – everyone other than Adam had been kicked out and she hadn't been close enough to listen in through the canvas – but when she saw him after the fact, Adam had been wearing the cruel smirk he wore when a mission gave him an excuse to use even a little more force than strictly necessary. After the fact, he had confided in Blake that with this mystery girl's strength and the support she could rally the White Fang would finally have the power to make a difference, something lasting, something permanent.

Blake hadn't liked how he'd worded it.

Not the power to liberate faunus, not the power to improve lives and relieve pain.

Just the power to make a difference.

It was a small detail, Blake realized. One that maybe shouldn't have mattered. But when she’d heard it, all she could hear was another sign that Adam had lost sight of what truly mattered.

It had been the last straw for her. She'd left the White Fang, left Adam and his new mystery girl, slipped out in the middle of the night, and hoped no one would follow her.

That was a couple months ago, and it had passed without any sign that the White Fang had even noticed her departure, let alone followed her.

But yet, here she was.

Mystery Girl was at Beacon.

Realistically – painfully, even – Blake knew that he wouldn't send his latest secret weapon across the continent just to track her down, whether it was to bring her back or to kill her. Whatever her and Adam's relationship had been, whatever it might have turned into, it had fallen apart as Adam had become more and more a man possessed. Blake wasn't sure he'd even truly notice she was gone. Not until a mission came up that needed her semblance specifically.

So, the chances were Mystery Girl was at Beacon for unrelated reasons, and if she wasn't sent after her specifically, then Blake doubted she would recognize her. She hadn't spent long in the camp, and they'd never interacted directly. Truly, Blake knew her more by reputation than anything else.

More than just being at Beacon, Mystery Girl was lying next to her, having followed her to the quiet – almost hidden – corner of the ballroom Blake had set up in to do some nice quiet reading before falling asleep. She hadn't said anything, only given her a shockingly awkward smile before setting down her bedroll an admittedly respectable distance away.

Blake turned her thoughts away from the mystery girl and turned it towards her novel. Or rather, she tried to. She managed a minute or two of distracted reading, her eyes scanning the same paragraph over and over again, before her anxiety forced her to acknowledge she wasn't going to make any progress tonight.

She slowly raised her eyes from the page and glanced back at the girl over the top of her book.

Silver eyes greeted her own as their gazes locked. Blake diverted her gaze in an instant, the returned gaze sending her thoughts back into a paranoid spiral. Why was Mystery Girl watching her? Why did she her set her bedroll up so close to hers? Why had she met Adam? Was she secretly a faunus? Why were silver eyes so pretty-

Wait a minute.

The secret-faunus was watching her again.

Ruby wished she knew why. She had her theory, of course, that they were a White Fang member who recognised her from the camp – it was the only thing she could think of that would explain why a trainee huntress would know her, let alone fear her – but a theory only took her so far. She couldn't exactly confirm it. Even if they could have a conversation in the packed ballroom without being overheard, if she was wrong and it was just something about her attitude throwing the girl off then Ruby would be outing herself as a conspirator to terrorism for no good reason.

Besides, she and the White Fang had an arrangement. She could – or rather, would have to – trust them to keep her secret. If not confronting the girl had no consequences, and confronting her had no real benefit and the potential for significant complications, then the obviously correct choice was not to do so.

Even if that would leave her curiosity unsatisfied.

Despite the curiosity, the girl wasn't why she had chosen her spot on the floor. Ultimately, it had come down to one simple truth – Ruby didn't like sleeping around people. She'd been raised in a sparsely populated castle where she'd had an entire wing to herself. The very presence of people was practically alien to her, let alone the noise they brought with them. The comparatively quiet corner with the curiosity-stoking girl was the natural choice.

To her own surprise, Ruby wasn't worried about the potential danger of sleeping at Beacon, even with Crescent Rose stashed in a locker. There was basically no chance that Ozpin had already seen through her ruse, and even if he had there was basically no worse place to ambush her if he wanted to keep his war secret. And on the off-chance that another student wanted to take a stab at her – secret-faunus girl perhaps – Ruby was more than confident in her ability to defend herself. She may not have had her weapon, but these were wannabe hunters. At most, they were trained to fight Grimm.

Ruby was trained to kill.

Chapter Text

It always began with sirens.

The squeal of tyres skidding over asphalt assaulted Ruby's ears, joining the cacophony of Mantle's urban jungle. She opened her eyes to face the length of a dingy back alley. Crescent Rose dug into the small of her back as her back brushed against the brick wall at the end of the alley. Beside her, a girl with dark skin and mint green hair - which were both as grimy as the trash cans they were hidden amongst - shivered despite the summer's heat.

Their hiding spot didn't last long. It couldn't, not when the other girl's broken arm left them trapped like rats against the wall. Harsh yellow light flooded the alley as cops flooded out of the patrol car that had barricaded the alley's only entrance. Ruby found herself squinting to make out the silhouette of the bastard of an officer that had been chasing the girls all day.

"That's it, punks, I've got you cornered now." The man's voice sounded like an ice cube being put through a blender - it started hard and rattly until it devolved into a frothing mess.

Ruby's hand hovered over Crescent Rose as cops started to fan out at the entrance of the alley, content to wait the girls out. It wasn't an ideal solution – it would draw far too much attention to herself, and Hazel wouldn't like that – but Ruby was pretty sure she could fight off some street cops long enough for her and the girl to get away. It would certainly be better than whatever some pissed off cop would do to them.

It never came to that.

The huntsman that intervened probably thought he was doing the right thing. In any other circumstance he would have been.

"And just what's going on here?" The huntsman asked the lead cop, his voice as bright as silver and as hard as steel.
 

"Police business," the man practically snarled. "Worry about your own concerns, Huntsman."

The huntsman shook his head with a sigh.

"As I'm sure you know, apprehending criminals fall under a hunter's concerns. I'm sure you don't mean to imply you're hounding innocent young girls for the crime of merely existing?"

The cop scowled; his lips wet with spittle.

"If you must know, I caught these punks stealing red-handed."

"And I'm sure that justified sending out the entire department's worth of patrol cars." The huntsman sighed again and turned his attention down the alley. "I'll make sure nothing happens to you, but I still need you to come down to the station."

The girl by Ruby's side trembled.

"We should do it," She whimpered as her injured arm brushed against the brick wall. "Hunters always protect us from the cops."

Ruby gritted her teeth so hard she thought one of them was going to pop.

"You know I can't do that."

The girl's face fell.

"Ruby please, we don't need to tell them about you, we can just go with the huntsman, he'll keep us safe."

Ruby could hear the girl's teeth chatter. There was no telling if it was from fear or the cold.

Ruby went to open her mouth, say something to convince the girl that they couldn't just give themselves up, but nothing came out. There was nothing she could say, nothing honest. There was no outrunning a huntsman with a broken arm and no aura.

And there could be no chance of her secret getting out.

She took a shaky breath.

"Good luck, Emerald."

She pushed the girl out of their hiding place and into the open. The huntsman stepped out to greet her, shielding her from the cops with his body, but Ruby didn't see it. She'd already dissolved into a cloud of petals and dashed to the top of the wall.

She reformed at the top of the wall, Crescent Rose already in her hands, its barrel aimed down into the alley.

She was gone before the body hit the ground.

The dream had all but left her mind by the time she found herself on the cliff for initiation. She'd done what she had to, and she'd made her peace with it. Maybe it was a shame that Emerald had to die, but Ruby didn't regret pulling the trigger. Not when the alternative was risking everything they'd worked for.

Standing between the new students and the cliff's edge was Ozpin, sipping a mug of something that was somehow still steaming, despite the cold breeze coming over the edge. In the other hand, he held a tablet that Ruby noted he did not have the spare hand to actually operate.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be tested in the Emerald Forest."

There was a slight pause in his words, made more notable by the slight echo from the canyon below. It seemed to Ruby almost like he was waiting for someone else to pick up the speech, but he was the only one present. Ruby wondered if Professor Goodwitch was meant to be here, like at the speech the night before.

Had she fallen sick or something? She'd seemed healthy enough yesterday.

Maybe she was just reading into it too much.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, let us put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... today."

Ruby frowned. She knew hunters typically operated in teams, and that she'd be assigned one at Beacon, but it put a real wrench in her plans. If she'd had the full two years of prep time she'd originally planned for at Evernight, then there wouldn't be an issue, but she was going to be needed in Vale most nights.

The whole point of being there was to secure an iron-clad position in the city's underworld, so that by the time she was in Beacon she had it at her beck and call. It was a job that was going to need time to build trust and respect with the existing criminal powers. She'd need her days free to gather intel, and her nights free to run jobs.

She could work around the time constraints. It wouldn't be as stable, but she could muscle her way in, scaring gang leaders into compliance like she'd cowed Roman. They'd be resentful of course, and she'd be sleeping with one eye open, but it would work for a while.

But that would still require her to sneak off to Vale most nights, to make sure her presence was felt, and the gangs were loyal. Trips that would surely attract the attention of curious teammates.

She found herself divided. One half of her, the aspiring huntress, wanted a team she could really bond with, friends and warriors she could trust at her side in battle. The other, the loyal daughter, wanted a quiet, passive team, one who could be trusted not to pay attention to her, or care about what she was doing.

The two sides warred within her, and she did not know which she would rather come out on top. Her only solace was the knowledge that ultimately, the decision was out of her hands. No matter how teams were chosen, Ruby hadn't known anyone on the cliff until the night before. Even if she got to choose her teammates, she wouldn't know who to pick, no matter what kind of teammates she wanted.

A team with Jaune and Pyrrha would be nice, she supposed after having breakfast with the pair of them. She'd not have expected the two of them to hit it off – not with what she'd heard of Pyrrha's accomplishments and Jaune's rather obvious lack thereof – but the two had hit it off at breakfast when Jaune noticed the girl he was sitting across from was also on the box of cereal he was pouring from.

He'd still had to ask for her name, of course.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well."

Some of the prospective students started murmuring at that – ones like her who didn't have a partner in mind, Ruby imagined. He was certainly making her second-guess her neutral stance towards potential partners – she didn't exactly have the most conductive childhood for learning how to interact with people her own age.

Or people in general, come to think of it.

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

Most of the prospective students shattered at the news, as the teams they'd planned with their friends fell apart around them. A couple of them, ones like herself who didn't have any friends with them Ruby figured, seemed pretty indifferent to the news.

One orange-haired girl gave a not at all subtle conspiratorial wink to the boy standing next to her.

Ruby found herself relieved more than anything. She couldn't trust it to work out in the long run of course, having no input in her teammates could easily result in the worst of both worlds - nosy, intrusive teammates who would involve themselves in her mission, and who she couldn't trust to have her back in a fight. But her teammates being left up to chance also meant she didn't have to choose between her mission and her inner huntress.

She could simply let the die fall where it may and find a way to work with the result.

Glynda Goodwitch was many different things to many different people. To Beacon's students, she was a firm but fair teacher. To the people of Vale, she was a powerful huntress. To Ozpin's inner circle, she was a trusted confidant. And to many, especially those who did not know her well, she was Ozpin's lapdog - obedient and eager.

While it was certainly true that she held a great deal of trust and respect for the headmaster - she counted herself lucky to be in his confidence - that was the extent of it. All of Ozpin's closes allies - whether they were his secret circle or his teaching staff - had their own opinions on the man's ideas, and Glynda was no exception.

For example, Glynda thought that Ozpin's decision to hold off on telling Miss Rose's family of her survival was, simply put, Fucking Moronic.

Blood tests? The girl was bloody identical to Summer. Glynda didn't know if Ozpin was genuinely that suspicious of a 15-year old girl who had clearly grown up outside the kingdoms, or if he truly did just want to spare Taiyang the potential heartbreak on the slimmest of chances that the girl who looked exactly like his late wife and called herself by his late daughter's name was in fact not his daughter, but either way he was clearly in the wrong.

Miss Rose's family was made up of some of their closest friends and allies. If there was even the slimmest chance that Ruby Rose lived, they deserved to know.

And it was significantly more than a slim chance.

Which was why Glynda found herself at the top of Beacon's CCT tower, in Ozpin's office, sitting at his desk, and trying her best not to let his choice in interior decorating bother her.

Really Ozpin, ticking clocks?

If there was a mortal person who liked the sound of ticking clocks, Glynda hadn't met them.

She gritted her teeth and put the sound out of her mind. Ozpin could handle the initiation speech on his own, but there was only so long before her presence watching over the forest would be missed. Despite how Ozpin built it up to the students, they didn’t actually leave prospective students to face the Grimm on their own – that would be highly irresponsible considering most years at least one completely unqualified teen snuck their way into initiation with dreams of being a hero.

Most of the initiates would never see a teacher in the forest, the Emerald Forest was carefully stocked with Grimm that should not provide a deadly threat to a properly trained initiate. Some danger, certainly – enough to convince the students that they do indeed need to partner up before they get their relic – but unlikely to do permanent damage to an aura-wielding Indvidual with some basic combat experience.

The unqualified, however – those that snuck in, forged documents, or even bribed staff – would often see a teacher before they'd even hit the ground. The difference between falling and a controlled descent was usually obvious to see, and those without the experience for a landing strategy or the aura to survive the drop would often get snatched from the air by her telekinesis or Professor Peach's air manipulation. What usually followed was a strict talking to and an escort off Beacon's campus.

Glynda opened Ozpin's computer – a small perk of her deputy status was access to his login for the school system, just in case she had to step into his role at a moment's notice. Most of the time she wouldn't bother, the headmaster rarely had access to anything she did not, but not this time.

Open on his desktop was the software that acted as the middle ground for the various technical aspects of initiation – it controlled everything from the monitoring cameras, to the launch pads, to the emergency signals that could call for hunters and drones in the event of a major accident. Specifically, Ozpin had the page that controlled the trajectories of the launch pads open and had seemed to have made some last-minute changes from when she had reviewed them last night.

Glynda rolled her eyes. Ozpin loved trying to tinker with the team compositions, as much as the random selections allowed for it.

Ultimately, regardless as to whether a student made it through initiation or not, the final decision to admit or reject them was left to the headmaster. As a consequence, Ozpin kept prospective student's files to himself until initiation was over, at which point he would share them with the rest of the staff. Ozpin said it was to protect the privacy of those who didn't make it, but Glynda suspected that it was really so that staff didn't know when a student who hadn't actually applied was accepted. Ozpin always seemed to have a soft spot for the students who had "taken the initiative" to find their own way into Beacon.

Glynda tended to think they were irresponsible thrill seekers, but that was neither here nor there.

Shockingly, she saw Jaune Arc's name at the top of the list as she scrolled down to "Xiao-Long". She would have put money on him having snuck in, based on what little she'd already seen.

Unsurprisingly, Yang Xiao-Long was at the end of the list – no Zephyrs this year to take the spot from her. Glynda opened her file and quickly took down Taiyang's scroll number. She used to have the number saved on her scroll back when he was an active participant in Ozpin's shadow war, like she had Qrow's now, but years of lessened involvement and new scrolls had dropped the number from her contacts.

She copied Taiyang's number and left the office, having no reason to linger when she was needed in the forest. She called him and Qrow as she walked.

"Glynda?" Taiyang was the first to answer. "Please don't tell me Yang is already in trouble."

Apparently, Taiyang still had her number. She almost felt a little guilty for losing his, although the feeling passed almost as fast as it had arrived.

"No, nothing like that." Glynda reassured him as Qrow joined the call. "Ozpin's discovered something, and I think the two of you need see it."

"What’s he found?" Qrow asked.

"Ruby Rose is alive."

Chapter Text

It was a peaceful day in the Emerald Forest. Birds were chirping in a gentle breeze, and while there were Grimm prowling the forest floor, there were no people to aggravate them.

Then it started raining aspiring hunters.

Adrenaline-filled aspiring hunters who had just been thrown off a cliff by a madman.

More than one bird was knocked from the sky as the hunters scrambled to implement their landing strategies. Some used their semblances or weapons to slow their descent, some caught themselves on the treetops, and some simply used their reserves of aura to tank the fall.

Ruby did none of those.

Ruby accelerated.

She fired Crescent Rose behind her, the gravity dust-infused rounds propelling her further with each shot until her semblance began to take her. She could feel it, eating away at her legs, turning them to petals as she got faster and faster, until she was gone from the waist down – just a body holding a scythe, a trail of rose petals where her legs should be.

Much like a bullet, Ruby could travel great distances through the air, but there was only so much she could do to increase her altitude. Figuring she'd need to land and find a partner at some point, Ruby activated the trigger on Crescent Rose to flip the blade up into its spear-like war scythe form and allowed herself to fall.

She dropped closer to Remnant, the tip of her war scythe carving her a path in the treeline as it's aura-infused steel obliterated any trunks it ran into. A Beowolf ran along the ground beside her, not unlike a dog running alongside it's master, except for all the times it tried to snap at the rose petals where Ruby's feet should have been.

The Beowolf overtook her as her semblance began to fade and her legs reformed. It took a second for the creature to notice, in which time it had already sped past her. It paused, head twitching and jaw snapping as it tried to pick up its sense of her emotions again – a sense Ruby's mother had once told her was closer to taste than anything else.

Crescent Rose found the Beowolf first.

The war scythe skewered the beast as Ruby's descent finally ended, impaling the corpse at the base of a large tree.

Ruby stood up from the slightly awkward crouched position she'd ended up reforming in, pulling Crescent Rose from the Beowolf's body as she did. The action accelerated the Grimm's natural disintegration process, scattering awful black and white flakes across the forest floor. They smelled like gunpowder – Ruby loved it.

Breathing out the last breath of Grimm smoke, Ruby considered her next step. They'd been given two objectives before being thrown off the cliff – find a partner and obtain a relic from the ruined temple to the north. Ruby didn't know which way was north and didn't want to disassemble Crescent Rose for the parts she'd need for a makeshift compass in the middle of the forest, so that left finding a partner who knew the way.

The question was, who?

Jaune would be the ideal choice. He was nice to be around, and while Ruby didn't have much experience in the topic, she would tentatively call them friends. Sure, he didn't seem like the most experienced option, and possibly not the brightest either, but that could be useful too. An unquestioning accomplice who didn't see the full picture would only be an asset for her time at Beacon.

That being said, Pyrrha had clearly taken a liking to Jaune at breakfast, who somehow only recognised her because she was sitting next to a cereal box with her own face on it. Ruby had a feeling she might not be able to get to Jaune before the two had been partnered.

That also had the side-effect of ruling out another good choice. Pyrrha had seemed nice enough at breakfast, although Ruby wouldn't say the two had really talked. However, her mother valued friends in high places, and there were no better choices in the initiation than Pyrrha and Weiss. Both would make good allies, however Pyrrha was almost certainly spoken for, and it was safe to say Weiss and her had not made good first impressions on each other.

That left the girl in the bow. She was... troubling to Ruby. She was pretty sure they'd get on great, based on how she'd reacted to Weiss' outburst the day before, but the girl had recognised her. Maybe Ruby had jumped the gun with her White Fang assumption – although it still seemed like the most likely cause to her – but the girl had seen something in Ruby, something to fear, and that was concerning.

She was torn between keeping far away from the girl, letting her forget all about Ruby, or partnering with her so she could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't do anything drastic.

She wouldn't get to make that choice. Ruby pushed her way through a bush and silver eyes met purple.

Weiss did not stomp. She was a Schnee, and a Schnee did not stomp around like petulant children just because they did not get there way.

Sure, she might be raising her feet higher every time she stepped, but that was because the grass in the forest was unkempt, and she had to step over it. And sure, she put her foot down harder each time than she would normally, but the ground was a little muddy after some recent rain and she had to force her heels in a little further to help maintain her balance.

But Weiss did not stomp. She was perfectly capable of dealing with a poor draw of partner in a dignified and respectable manner.

Such as by ignoring the partner formation entirely and only returning when she realised her only alternative was the boy she saw puking into a trashcan the day before.

As it turned out, the rude girl from the day before was at least a competent partner.

The pair walked through the Emerald Forest in silence, neither making the effort to reach out to the other. The way Weiss saw it, after her outburst yesterday, it was her new partner's job to make amends. Even if everything the girl had said was true, who was she to come after Weiss for her family's actions?

It's not like Weiss didn't know her father was a monster. How dare she presume to know Weiss so well as to assume her complicit? To assume her to have no plans or desires to move her family and company beyond her father?

There was a small voice, almost entirely drowned out by the rest of her irritation, that tried to point out that her partner – whose name she didn't even know – hadn't actually said anything wrong, and it didn't seem like they wanted to start another fight now that they'd gotten it out of their system.

Weiss' frustrations let themselves out at the Grimm. As the partners navigated the Emerald Forest in silence, they ran into Grimm after Grimm – a seemingly never-ending horde of Beowolves that met their end at the tip of a rapier or blade of a cleaver.

Despite the raw number of Grimm dispatched, there was little efficiency in the fighting. For every successful move Weiss would execute, she'd stumble over her new partner trying to execute another or pull back early as her partner's ribbon pulled herself or another Grimm into the way. Eventually, frustrated by the distractions, Weiss worked her way further and further from her partner. She may find herself surrounded for it, but at least she'd be able to fight at full strength.

"You're going to get yourself killed." It was the first thing her partner had said to her since the previous day, called across the gap that had formed between them during a brief gap in the waves of Grimm.

Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I can handle myself, thank you."

Her partner sighed.

"Do you have a lot of experience in the wilderness?"

Weiss didn't, but there was no chance she was telling her that. She opened her mouth to answer, but her partner didn't give her the chance.

"We are surrounded by Beowolves. They have been just waiting for us to get separated so that they can surround us."

"So what? They're just Beowolves."

The partner sighed, although Weiss was too far away to really hear it.

"If you want to get yourself killed by a pack of them just because you could take them one on one in training, then by all means go ahead."

Honestly, what did this girl think she knew? Weiss would show her.

Weiss marched on, ignoring her partner's protests.

As much as it would pain her to admit it, it started going downhill almost immediately, and she even seemed to be faring worse than her partner. It wasn't long after their talk that they ran into more Beowolves, and it didn't take long for their numbers to grow. Her glyphs helped in keeping them back and giving her space, but even they weren't totally effective, and they'd drained her aura more than she'd care to admit.

As Weiss and her partner pushed further through the horde and the fighting went on, Weiss had to settle for clearing less and less space until she stopped using her glyphs entirely. The odd Beowolf, unharried by the hard-light obstacles, started to circle around to attack from behind, distracting her and forcing her to waste valuable moments taking them out while even more attacked from the front.

She treasured Myrtenaster, it was a gift from her sister, however in the moment she wished it was anything but a rapier. A duelist's weapon through and through, its sharpened point was nearly no help in clearing large groups.

Her only solace was her dust. Channeling burn dust into Myrtenaster's blade gave it a flaming edge that proved effective at holding off several Grimm at a time once they got close to her. It kept her aura relatively high, all things considered, as she only had to tank the occasional bite or scratch – although she was aware enough to know that this could not last forever.

And she was running out of options.

She couldn't focus her dust into anything more effective than a coated blade or the odd simple blast – the Grimm wouldn't give her the time or space. Her weapon didn’t have a second mode that was more suited to crowd control.

She couldn't summon help.

Another bite, slightly lower aura.

Another scratch, slightly lower aura.

She didn't have the space to check its percentage, but she could it must be getting low.

Another bite.

Another scratch.

Pain flared across Weiss's shin. A Beowolf had gone low and gotten a bite on her leg while she was distracted cutting down the one that leapt above. She couldn't see it, but she could feel a trickle of blood drip down from the bite.

Her partner ended up saving her. Swinging her ribbon and lodging the sickle half of her weapon in the treetops, her partner swung over the horde of Grimm and dropped behind Weiss's back.

"Aura broken?" Her partner asked.

She forced the pair of Beowolves back with a flaming slash of Myrtenaster. She could have sworn that her aura hadn't broken – and a quick barrier glyph formed between herself and the Beowolves confirmed that.

"Not yet." Weiss admitted through gritted teeth. The idea that she'd been so overwhelmed that she'd gotten distracted and lost control over her aura was even more shameful than the possibility that it had broken.

Her partner nodded.

"You've got the Schnee semblance, right? Can you summon a distraction?"

Weiss grimaced.

"If I could, don’t you think I'd have done that already?"

"Right, I'll buy you space." Her partner didn't linger on the subject, which was a pleasant surprise after the previous day. "Once you've got the space, use your dust and take out the rest of the horde."

Weiss nodded.

"Got it."

Her partner got to work. She'd leap up and use the sickle and ribbon to pull herself into the centre of a cluster of Beowolves, where the sickle would transform into a sword. She'd then systematically dispatch the Grimm, dual wielding sword and cleaver to keep herself covered on all sides. Weiss didn't get a good view of the action as she prepared her dust, but her partner defiantly had some kind of evasive semblance that was letting her avoid the hits she couldn't parry.

Once she'd cleared the cluster, her sword would transform back into a sickle, which also appeared to be some form of pistol. She'd snap off a few shots at any lone Grimm that were getting close to Weiss, then leap back into the air and repeat the process on the next group.

Her partner was clearly talented, Weiss had to admit, although re-analysing her worth as a partner would need to wait. She spun chambers on Myrtenaster, listening for the right tone of click that would indicate ice dust had been loaded. Once it was, she prepared a glyph, not aimed at the approaching Grimm, but the ground, directly under herself.

She held the glyph, eyes darting away occasionally to keep an eye and an ear on her partner. It was straining on her overly depleted aura, but every bit of power would count. Soon enough, she heard the now familiar sound of her partner's pistol firing, and a moment later she was leaping through the air towards the next cluster.

Before her partner landed, Weiss released her glyph. A wave of ice formed around the edges of the glyph and shot out like a shockwave. The force of the wave was enough to knock the whole horde to the ground, where the Beowolves were quickly frozen in place.

Her partner landed gracefully on the ice, despite her heels. She walked over to Weiss, ice crunching softly underfoot.

"Thank you…" Weiss paused, forcing herself not to grimace. "For saving me."

Her partner smiled for the first time since Weiss had first seen her – even if it was only slight.

"You didn't do too bad yourself." She put out a hand for Weiss to shake. "Blake Belladonna."

It would be a lie if Ruby said she'd recognized her new partner right away. It took a couple moments for her to place her, as she stepped back from the bush they'd been pushing through in opposite directions when they'd made eye contact, giving her partner the space to step through. But it did come to her – they'd spent some time next to each other on the ride to Beacon, and her partner's voluminous blonde hair tended to make her stand out in a crowd, so she'd seen her around a couple times over the last day. Ruby was pretty sure they hadn't said a word to each other.

Her partner looked around the small clearing Ruby had found herself in as she brushed twigs out of her hair with her fingers. She let out a slow whistle as her eyes brushed over the furrow that had been carved in the ground by Ruby's landing, nodding her approval.

"So, partners huh? The name's Yang." The blonde – Yang, Ruby corrected herself – held out her hand with an easy-going smile.

She took the hand.

"I'm Ru-"

She paused. There was something in the air, the very slightest haze, and a whiff of sulphur. Something cracked behind Yang.

"Grimm."

That was all the warning she gave Yang before she dashed backwards, pulling her partner along with her. Thankfully, Yang seemed to have a good sense for what Ruby was thinking and followed the motion, clearing away from the bush just as an Ursa burst through in a shower of dirt, twigs, and leaves.

Ruby smiled.

As the debris settled, Ruby dashed forward, dashing around behind the Ursa with her semblance so that Yang had plenty of space to get up close with her gauntlets. With weapons like those and a build like that, Ruby was confident her partner was a brawler.

A brawler that wasn't moving.

She looked back at her partner. She was staring at Ruby, a far-away look in her eyes. She filed it away for later – a fight was not the time to figure out whatever was going on with her partner.

"Yang, hit it high!"

To her credit, Ruby's voice snapped Yang into motion. She didn't question the order, just leapt at the Ursa – socking it square in the jaw with her gauntlets, which exploded with a shotgun blast for good measure.

Ruby used the blast as a queue, launching forward with a shot from Crescent Rose while the Ursa was still off balance. She caught the Grimm around the ankles with slightly duller portion of Crescent Rose's blade, right where it met the weapon's shaft. Anywhere else on the blade, she'd be horrified she'd let it dull, but the joining point was an intentional bit of design. The sheer size of the blade needed a solid connection to support its weight, and the complexity of the moving parts higher up the shaft didn't leave much room for that joint. Instead, a thick steel rod was built into the base of the blade, which locked into the shaft to give added support. Sharpening it would only risk the integrity of the vital component, so instead she leant into it, using it as a foothold when she stood on the blade midair, and using it for attacks like this where a clean cut might be a little too effective.

Already staggered by Yang's shotgun blast to the face, the Ursa toppled back, the spikes on its back digging into the ground and pinning it down under its own weight. The Grimm's limbs didn't have the flexibility to stand itself up, so until it managed to displace enough dirt with its writhing, it was trapped.

That would take a couple minutes, and Ruby didn't intend to give it that long. Transforming Crescent Rose into the more compact of its rifle forms, she put a bullet through the Grimm's head.

All in all, the fight lasted less than a minute, even with her partner's distraction. The Grimm barely got the time to roar, let alone attack them.

"Roses…" Ruby heard Yang mutter under her breath. Her partner shook her head and all signs of whatever had taken her were gone. "You got some good ears on you. Some nice moves there too, Grimm."

Grimm? It took Ruby a moment to realize why Yang was calling her Grimm – she'd been cut off in her introduction, hadn't she?

Well, if Yang wanted to call her Grimm, then it was no skin off her back. It was almost the family name, Ruby chuckled to herself.

"Not so bad yourself." Ruby replied. "Are those shotguns built into your gauntlets?" She asked, trying not to let too much excitement slip into her voice. She'd loved weapons for as long as she could remember, but living at Evernight didn't give her the opportunity to see many in person.

"Yeah." Yang said, jerking her arms to trigger the weapons' reload mechanism. "They're called Ember Celica; I built them at Signal."

"So cool." Ruby practically mumbled to herself as she watched the mechanisms move and feed a new shell into the chamber. It all seemed to be built around a series of springs and counterweights, presumably carefully calibrated to trigger only with very specific arm movements.

"How about yours?" Yang asked as the pair started walking in the direction of the temple. "It doesn't look like something off the shelf."

"She's not, I designed and built my Crescent Rose myself – with a little help from my…" Ruby paused. "Well, I guess you could call him my uncle."

Watts had very little say in anything related to Crescent Rose herself, but considering he taught Ruby everything she used to build Crescent Rose, it felt like it would be wrong not to acknowledge him. Even if he would sigh at being called her uncle.

The pair came across a ledge as they walked through the forest. It wasn't a long drop – nowhere near the size of the cliff they'd been thrown off – and a small creek flowed along its base. Silence hung over them comfortably as they put their conversation on hold to focus on navigating down without getting their clothes too wet. Aura might have protected them from the fall, but finishing initiation dripping wet would have still sucked.

"Didn't build it in school then?" Yang asked once she was safely dry.

It was a fair question, Ruby supposed. While plenty of hunters took pride in building their own weapon as a part of their education, the practical reason so many built them at a school was simply ease of access. The facilities, resources, and knowledge required to construct a hunter's weapon were outside the means of most families to access without school subsidies.

"I was raised in the wilderness, outside the kingdoms." Ruby replied. "There wasn't a school to go to."

Yang raised her eyebrows at that but was thoughtful enough not to comment on it. She seemed nice enough, but Ruby didn't exactly feel like going into her full history with someone she just met.

Her heart twinged as her thoughts were inadvertently turned to her mother. She raised a hand to the white rose that had been stitched into the left breast of her blouse, brushing her fingers over the threads to centre herself.

"I'm here Mom. I'll do you proud, I'll find her."

Yang had stopped moving.

For a moment, Ruby thought she might have just been waiting for Ruby to catch up, since she'd paused herself, but Yang wasn't looking back waiting for her to catch up. She was staring. Staring at the flower on her chest.

"What's that?" Yang's voice had lost the warmth it normally carried.

Ruby took half a step back. She wasn't sure what had caused Yang's sudden shift, but she didn't want to be caught on the back foot if it turned violent.

"It's my emblem." Ruby said, lowering her hand so that Yang could see it properly. "It was my mo- "

"What's your name?"

"Ruby Rose."

Ruby was flat on the ground before the words had finished leaving her mouth. Yang had launched herself at the younger girl, completely knocking her flat.

She wasn't attacked. It took her a second to process that, but Yang was just holding her in a hug. She was crying – heavily, if the feeling coming through Ruby's outfit was to be believed – and saying about a million words. Most of them were completely inaudible, except for one.

Sister.

Sister.

No Grimm bothered them for the rest of their time alone.

Sister.

Eventually, Yang recovered enough to stand them both up and start explaining herself.

Sister.

Ruby didn't hear any of it.

Sister.

She knew it was true.

Sister.

Eventually, the forest opened up into a clearing.

Sister.

There were ruins in the clearing, and they took a relic.

Sister.

The relics were chess pieces. There weren't any black ones left.

Sister.

There were Grimm. Large ones.

Sister.

There were other students too. The White Fang girl was there.

Sister.

They defeated the Grimm. Ruby might have helped.

Sister.

The body of a Nevermore fell down a cliff as it dissolved.

Sister.

They were taken back to the school.

Sister.

There was a ceremony. She was named team leader.

Sister.

Yang pointed out two people in the crowd.

Sister.

Family.