章 1870: 101
Chapter 101
"Hello Ruby Rose. It's so good to see you again. It's been too long."
"Salem…" Ruby whispered, fear spiking strangely high and eyes going wide as a massive, jellyfish-like grimm rose from the shadows, glowing brightly as the gelatinous upper surface swirled with clouds and displayed the image in her nightmares within- a horror made flesh, the face in her dreams, the face that had haunted her for a year and then seemed to vanish .
Of course it was too good to be true. Of course the vision of her nightmares would come back.
Of course.
"Oh good. You remember me- what a shame it would be if I spent all that time getting to know you and you couldn't even remember my name~" Salem's image purred, the jellyfish-like grimm floating closer as Ruby took a trembling step back, unaware of her grimm matter writhing in response to her burst of fear as she dropped Crescent Rose from numb, shaking fingers.
"Wh-why are you here- what's going on- you can't be here, you weren't supposed to-!"
"Hush, my little rose petal…" Salem almost crooned, the expression on the terrifying woman's face seeming almost soft despite the overt grimm corruption present across her whole body. The grimm bearing her image loomed forward, tendrils raising up and caressing Ruby's cheek almost as though it were a mother's touch. "Fear not. You aren't the one I want… for now… all I need from you is to send a message…"
"Don't listen to her Ruby! She's trying to get in your head!" Emerald called out, lunging forward as the melee resumed, illusions flying about on both sides and making it hard for anyone to land a hit on either side. "Dammit! Stand still and fucking go down already!"
"Not a chance! Not while my Queen's will must be done!" one of the figures shouted, blasting lightning down onto Ruby's friends as they frantically dodged for cover, Pyrrha overcharging her shield with her semblance to divert the bolts away while Ren, Scarlet, and Weiss tried their best to hit the other figures, dancing around and-
"Do not focus on them, focus on me," Salem hissed, yanking Ruby's head back towards the grimm that held her in its grasp- she should kill it, she should rejoin the fight, she should- why couldn't she move? What- what was this? "Focus, little rose… my message is simple, concise. Something that you want to do with all of your heart, but your foolish sense of morality keeps you from doing."
"I- I won't! Let- let me go! What did you do to me!? What did you- why can't I move!?" Ruby cried out, struggling helplessly as something within her quailed in the face of the grimm queen, unable to stop the thing in her face from running its disgusting claws over her cheeks, tracing the bone plates over her shoulders and chest and examining the mask in her hair even as her extra eyes whirled about, trying to find some way- any way out of this. "Let go of me dammit! What do you even want!?"
"Shhhh sh sh sh sh… peace, little rose. The message is simple…" Salem purred, the massive jellyfish thing in front of her looming as its grasp suddenly became tighter, the looming sense of domination overwhelming Ruby's mind with a rising bloodlust that couldn't be stopped- so much more than normal, so much so that everything began to dissolve into red and black spots, so much so that she could feel the silver in her eyes fading into darkness and death and hatred and rage and bloodlust overtook her senses and made her go berserk with howling fury and- and-
"Kill. Them. All."
The jellyfish grimm vanished into smoke, a whirling cloud of malevolence that Ruby breathed in even as she sank further into herself, unable to feel… anything but that constant sense of gnawing darkness that- that-
"Ruby! Snap out of it! What's going on with her, what did that thing do!?" Weiss shouted, blocking a strike from the figure's dagger and returning with a whirling strike of Myrtenaster that they dodged, only to catch the tip of the lance form to the gut and get flung away with a flash of Aura. She growled under her breath as she fell back at Emerald's signal, the illusionist seemingly shifting everyone's positions even as the other figures, hooded and cloaked as they were, seemed to flit about at speeds that were impossible, striking and falling back and disappearing like they were trying to fight an army of Blake's shadow clones.
"This is bad, we need to fall back-" Jaune muttered, yelping as he fell in line with Pyrrha, the two of them fighting back to back as Jaune swung his shield through the illusory clones and blocked shards of ice raining from the two figures somehow hovering high above. "Pyrrha, we need to take those two out!"
"On it!" Pyrrha nodded, grimacing as she rolled away from Jaune and sprung into the air- bouncing off of a stack of crates and flinging Akoúo̱ around on an oblique arc through the air- the first floating figure dodged out of the way instantly, blasting out lightning that Pyrrha just barely managed to block by using Miló as a lightning rod and guiding the charge down with Polarity even as she hung in midair for a moment and twisted and- bang.
A shot from Miló rang out, slamming perfectly into the edge of Akoúo̱ and sending the heavy shield straight into the back of the neck of the other figure- drawing out a shout of pain that was muffled and distorted by the voice changer they wore, but sent them to the ground anyway, where upon Jaune intercepted the path and slammed his shield into their head, shattering their aura and sending them flying to the side into a wooden crate with a resounding crash.
"One down!" Scarlet cheered, then yelped as another hooded figure struck out at him with a pitch black sword in a reverse grip, the edge gleaming and dripping with poison even as he backflipped up and into the air as well, soaring with his Semblance onto a stack of crates and firing potshots down the entire time as he continued moving- only to catch a spike of ice to his chest that slammed him into the warehouse wall and shattered into a massive spray of crystal, pinning him there as the still floating figure charged up lightning. "Fuck! Help!"
"Scarlet!" Sage cried out, flinging himself up at what would be Scarlet's sudden doom, yelling out a battle cry as he swung his sword- only to be flung back down by the one spawning duplicates, their knife almost driving into his eye as he swung too early and missed. "No!"
Lightning flashed, filling the warehouse with the sound of thunder and shattering ice and-
"That was… too close…" Ren muttered, panting heavily as he retracted Stormflower's grapples and faced the person he'd dragged down with him- unable to make out anything beyond the heavy, hooded cloak and the crackling lightning around their form. "I'm not letting you hurt my friends."
"Scarlet, are you okay?" Weiss called out, leaping up and taking a defensive stance in front of the now freed Scarlet, who'd slumped to his knees on top of the stack of crates and grasped at his chest as he sucked in huge lungfuls of air- both of them taking a pause from the fight as he recovered and she stood guard.
"I… could be worse…" he muttered, shuddering quietly before turning to Ruby, who was… stock still.
Standing there, as though frozen. What was going on? The jellyfish thing had vanished, but she was… wait.
"Weiss, I don't mean to distract from the fight going on but… are her eyes supposed to… be that color?" Scarlet asked, whispering quietly as he pointed to where Ruby had been standing for the last few seconds, arms hanging limp by her sides and blankly staring off into space as darkness had leeched into her sclera and turned her irises into a hellish, burning red that was so unlike her normal orange and yellow that it sent shivers down Weiss' spine.
"No. It's not. And… we need to go. Right now," Weiss spoke, hesitation filling her voice as she helped Scarlet up and the two of them rejoined the fray. "Everyone fall back, we need to get clear- something's wrong with Ruby!"
"Of course something's wrong with her, that freaky bitch did something wrong with my cousin and she's just been standing there!" Emerald shot back, blocking a strike from a sword and returning fire with Thief's Respite before leaping back- all seven of them landing together at once as they held themselves at the ready- why were the four figures standing back?
Why were they…
Oh no.
The sound of shattering glass filled the air as Ruby's form cracked and burst apart at the seams, bone plates crumbling and flesh peeling as she screamed and roared and the sickening black morass of her body began to melt down and turn into a bubbling tower of pitch, grasping skeletal hands ripping from the darkness and revealing Rosebud after Rosebud- the humanoid grimm, pulling themselves from the fountain of shadows and chattering as their masks ripped open into horrifying maws and weapons came forth from within their emaciated torsos.
"... The Queen's will be done," one of the figures rasped out, all four of them nodding silently as they seemingly vanished all at once.
An army of Rosebuds rose at once, eyes glowing crimson as their weapons shattered into masses of grimm bone and seething red veins, and from within the remains of the puddle came the beast that Ruby so rarely turned into. Her full grimm form, towering higher than it ever had before and drooling venom as its crimson eyes stared forth with burning hatred.
"... Ruby…?" Emerald whispered, almost dropping her weapons in shock as she stared at the sight before her- was her baby cousin really going to…?
The monster that was once Ruby Rose roared , and the mass of grimm charged as one.
Notes:
Y'know, I didn't actually expect to end up writing a dark-ish turn in the plot but like... I mean. I did kinda plan this moment out like a month before I even wrote it. So.
Yeah.
Shit gets worse (and then better) from here.
... I really shouldn't have to try and reassure people like this but god, fic readers get SNIPPY these days for some reason...
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