Kapitel 1817: 48
Chapter 48Notes:
This chapter has one image right at the start and it's got blood in it so be aware of that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
[I never actually wrote an Adam mauling when I wrote this chapter a month ago, but this is all you really need to know for the aftermath tbh.]
"I want your blood? Really? What kind of a threat is that?" Weiss sighed once all was said and done, crossing her arms and grumbling as she picked at her rather now ruined skirt- somehow, in all of the excitement, she'd taken a lot more hits to her clothes than one would have previously assumed. Either because the White Fang goons had actually managed to hit her at some point, or because the effort of wrangling Ruby back down from her literal bloodrage had left all of them with far more scratches and bruises than any of them were happy with.
Considering the state of Blake and Penny's clothes… the latter was more likely. Especially since Weiss had seen Penny and Yang grappling onto Ruby's arms while she and Blake sort of vaguely hugged their erstwhile team leader around the hind legs in some vague attempt to get her to not murder Roman Torchwick and Adam Taurus.
Not that any of them would have been really sad to see Adam go, but murder was a bit of a step too far in regards to what Yang would permit her sweet, innocent baby sister to do.
Despite the fact that Ruby freely admitted to killing quite a lot of people (well… bandits) as a child and Yang said nothing about that.
… Maybe it was just a 'no murder in front of Yang' rule?
Whatever.
"It was the best I could come up with at the time," Ruby whined, curled up in Yang's jacket and nuzzling into her sister, who was still murmuring little nothings and mantras to remind herself that Ruby was there and alive and not dead and not a horrible monster. The redhead's cape was still firmly wrapped around Yang as well, the two of them essentially cocooned together as they sat on the Bullhead back to campus. "I was in a half-conscious bloodrage, okay? It's not like I'm great at coming up with one-liners in the first place and being all grr argh grimm mode doesn't really help!"
"No, but it did let you maul my shitty terrorist ex-boyfriend and rip his arm off… even if he did get rescued right at the end," Blake deadpanned, rolling her eyes as she walked over with a pack of wet wipes, having gotten some from the pilot and starting to dab at her partner's lips with soft, gentle motions- wiping away the crusted blood and Dust residue covering half of Ruby's face still as she spoke. "Thanks… by the way. And… sorry for being mostly useless for that fight. I… I told myself that I'd be strong. That I'd never let Adam hurt me ever again, and that I'd stand up to him the next time I saw him."
She paused, shaking her head as she chewed her lower lip and looked to the side for a long moment. "I couldn't. I… I don't think I was ready. I don't think I'd healed enough- I've only been away from him for less than a year now and…"
"It's okay, Blake. You did what you could! And besides, you and Yang did that really cool combo attack that knocked his Aura super low anyway," Ruby smiled nuzzling her cheek against Yang's as a pool of shadow formed at their feet and a Rosebud swiftly crawled out and wrapped its arms around Blake in a parody of Ruby's usual hugs- with the grimm copy's cape even coming up and wrapping around Blake's body like a regular blankie cuddle. "I'm just… sorry I didn't catch him before he blew my head off. I mean… I figured I'd survive, but… I never got to test it before, for obvious reasons."
"If you ever do something that stupid again I'll be very upset young lady! And how do you think Cinder's gonna feel knowing she was a day late to stop you from getting your head blown off!?" Yang growled, her arms tightening around Ruby's midsection as she buried her face into her sister's shoulders, all surly and burning hot and trembling with self-recrimination and old fears as her slightly recovered Aura activated into a light flame, hair glowing slightly as she took what comfort she could from her sister's cold, eldritch body. "I almost- I didn't know… I… I saw you fall and… I thought you were dead… I burned all of my Aura trying to avenge you but… It- Ruby… please… please please please don't scare me like that again."
"I won't, Yang. Never again," Ruby promised, sighing as she bumped her head against Yang's, her ears twitching as she settled into her sister's comfortingly warm body and shook her head. "I don't wanna do that ever again either. Even if I ended up being okay… growing everything back really hurt… especially my eyes…"
"That is to be expected, if the Atlas Academy archives are to be believed," Penny spoke up, having remained silent for the entire trip so far- somehow the most banged up out of all of them, despite the fact that she was entirely pristine underneath her almost ruined clothes. "The rumors and old fairy tales state that silver eyes are indicative of great martial prowess, and can 'shine the light of creation' upon the world, whatever that means. I have no way of confirming exactly, but given that your body is mostly made of grimm matter- which, in old religious texts, implies that they are beings entirely of destruction, then it is entirely curious as to how a being of destruction could retain what is considered in the old tales to be the purest embodiment of creation."
"... Huh?" Ruby blinked, tilting her head as everyone turned to look at the mysterious, orange haired girl. "... Wait- what do you mean light of creation? Like, actual light? Silver light?"
"Actually- yes. How did you know?" Penny asked, tilting her head to the side.
Yang looked up, grip going somewhat slack as she looked between her baby sister and Penny, expression shifting into a slow, terrible realization. "No, you can't mean- Rubes, you don't mean-?"
"That night that…" Ruby licked her lips slowly, turning to Blake and Weiss- as well as Penny. Maybe she couldn't trust Penny that much, given that they just met earlier that day, but… Ruby wanted to. Something about Penny was special- and Ruby didn't mean the fact that she could see glints of metallic gray beneath the few scrapes that Penny had on her cheeks and palms. "I need you guys to… to swear. That this doesn't go anywhere. That no one else knows about this."
Privately, she was thankful for her emotion senses and the closed door between the pilot's cabin and the Bullhead's passenger hold- the pilot didn't know anything, and was only focused on getting back to Beacon in a timely and comfortable manner.
"I'm assuming it has something to do about your past," Weiss huffed, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall and frowned, staring intently at her team leader before shaking her head and letting out a quiet breath. "I promise not to tell. Whatever it is- it stays between us."
"I agree," Blake nodded resolutely from where she was still kneeling by Ruby's side, having finished cleaning up the mess on Ruby's lips and settled into a comfortable sitting position in between words. "I understand what it's like to have a past you'd rather hide- if you're comfortable with telling us, then I'm more than happy to keep it secret."
"I will not betray your trust, Ruby Rose!" Penny stated, finishing off her simple statement with a jaunty salute, her ever positive attitude lifting the spirits in the cabin for a moment before she settled back down.
"Good… because… it does relate to what Penny said. The light of creation. The… the ultimate weapon against grimm," Ruby sighed, her ears flattening slightly as she stared at the floor of the Bullhead. "I… should start at the beginning. I was four years old when my Aura awakened. Yang was six. We were out in the woods one day and… I don't remember much at the time. Yang-"
"I dragged her with me. I was looking for my deadbeat mom after Ruby's mom died, thinking that we could have a happy family again if I just dragged that bitch back," Yang stated, growling under her breath. "It was my fault. I dragged Ruby out, put her in a blanket and sat her in my wagon and grabbed all the food I could manage. Dad was depressed and could barely remember to feed us, Uncle Qrow was out on missions and drinking himself half to death to try and cope with the loss. Cinder… Cinder was still in Atlas at the time. There was a barn in one of the photos dad had of their team… I found the barn, but…"
"There was nothing but Beowolves," Ruby cut in, voice uncharacteristically serious as her ears twitched and her eyes shifted- sclera turning black and silver irises shrinking as the burning coals in her pupils grew outwards to fill her eye sockets. "A dozen of them, at most. Nothing for any of us now, but for a scared pair of kid sisters wallowing in their own uncertainty and despair? We might as well have been served on a plate. Yang managed to throw me out of the wagon and ran after me while I untangled myself, but we got separated. I fell down a hill…"
"And I ran on blindly because I was trying to get to Ruby," Yang shuddered, pulling at the cape surrounding her like a blanket and shrugging Ruby into the seat next to her, the thick leather duster falling to the ground as she exposed her torso- her yellow tube top not covering much of anything, showing her muscles, her bare skin… and the myriad of scars dotted all over her torso. Claw marks on her sides, bite marks around her shoulders- deep, angry scars that were clearly old and faded due to how young she had been, but on someone her age… they would have been nearly fatal. "I didn't get far. We barely managed to buy ourselves a minute- probably because the damn things were playing with us…"
"But it was enough for Uncle Qrow to save Yang. Me… I hit my head and landed in the bottom of a ditch, and while most of the pack went after Yang because her panic was so much louder, one of the grimm came after me," Ruby sighed, grimacing as a pool of shadow formed again and rose up into the form of a horrific looking grimm- almost like a Beowolf but larger, angrier looking, feral and malformed in some ways and yet… brimming with malice. "A Hound. The only one of its kind, or that I've found so far. It… tried to kidnap me. To take me. It tried to hurt me, to pull me into its body and integrate me into its matter until I was nothing but a half living core inside of an abomination. It succeeded, but…"
Ruby shrugged, shaking her head as the grimm construct faded away- along with the Rosebud that had been hugging Blake. "I don't know what happened. All I know is that, eventually I came back to myself. I wasn't Ruby Rose. I was… something a little more. A little different. I used to be human. I used to be normal. I used to be… me . My semblance isn't Grimm Rose- it's Petal Burst . All it's supposed to do is let me run around really fast and leave rose petals everywhere… just like mom's. Everything else is just… it isn't me recreating grimm using my Aura. I… I am a grimm. Half a grimm. Something. I don't know what I am anymore, but I know that I'm still… still wearing my own face. Trying to be someone who can fight the evils of the world instead of adding to them. And… I guess that means that my silver eyes were more important than I thought."
She almost chuckled- bitter and low in her throat. "At least you helped solve one of the mysteries about that night, Penny. Thanks."
"You are welcome, Friend Ruby. And I am sorry to have brought up painful memories," Penny spoke quietly, looking down at her hands rather awkwardly as she tried to look at Ruby- only to quickly pull her gaze to the side out of guilt. "And… if you are nothing else… then even if you do not know what you are, then… at least you are still Friend Ruby."
"You're more than a grimm," Weiss followed up, nodding at Ruby without a single ounce of judgement in her eyes. "You, Ruby Rose, are a stunningly powerful Huntress, an amazingly adorable puppy, and… someone I'm proud to call my team leader."
"You're a classmate and a great baker, the best weaponsmith I've ever seen, and one of the first people I felt comfortable with at Beacon," Blake followed up, placing her hand on Ruby's shoulder- joined shortly after by Weiss and Penny as they stood and walked over. "But most of all- you're my partner ."
"And… you might be a pain in the ass when it comes to cheese and chocolate. And you might have worried me half to death tonight… and burned off a chunk of my hair once with that horrible demon forge you made back home," Yang finished, squeezing Ruby tight as the red Huntress teared up with the feelings of friendship and love and affection surrounding her, unable to so much as speak as her team (and Penny) reassured her of her place in the world. "But most importantly… you are Ruby Rose. You're not just a grimm wearing your own face. You're my sister - thick and thin, good and bad, now and forever. And nothing is ever going to change that."
"I might not have known you for very long, but I am your friend- and so long as I am active, that will not change, Ruby Rose!" Penny grinned, squeezing Ruby's shoulder reassuringly.
"We won't leave you behind," Blake nodded. "And we won't leave you- ever."
"You're our friend, our teammate, and our leader. We trust you, and we'll be by your side," Weiss finished- just in time for the Bullhead to land and reveal the very irate form of Professor Goodwitch standing there with her heel tapping against the concrete landing pad.
"And just who is responsible for this mess that I've only just now heard of?" she asked, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.
And, in a stunning display of solidarity that immediately contradicted everything that they'd said before- every single person in the Bullhead immediately pointed at Ruby with a simultaneous call of "Ruby did it!"
"Even you, Penny!? Betrayal at every turn! Augh! After that entire heart to heart too…"
"I am sorry- but you are, in fact, responsible for the vast majority of the happenings of tonight," Penny answered, clearing her throat awkwardly despite being a robot and not needing to breathe .
Ruby sighed.
"Yeah… yeah."
Notes:
Whatever you're imagining in your head for "pissed off OP grimm kaiju mauls Adam Taurus and rips his arm off before he runs for his fucking life"... yeah, that's pretty much canon.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein