113RWBY is the property of Viz Media.
Little Nightmares is the property of Bandai Namco.
Chapter 14: Hidden Pain
She ran hard, they ran hard, the boy with the paper bag on his head trailing just behind her, harder than either of them could recall, she suspected.
As they passed by a crate that was just left out in the grassy expanse, she heard a familiar noise.
Click.
She didn't even have time to blink before what she expected to happen next happened.
Bang!
The next second, the crate exploded into a shower of splinters, sending a jolt of terror rush up her spine. No matter how many times that monster does that, she will never become lazy or assume he will miss.
The boy had just reached the next crate which had been left in the forested wilderness as the monster loaded his next shot.
Click.
Click.
Bang!
She did not look back, the boy had shown he could take care of himself so far and she was not going to endanger herself out of concern for a stranger.
A stranger who had freed her and helped her get out, but still a stranger.
Salvation came to her when an old cabin loomed over her. Without a second thought, she ran inside and pressed her hands against the wooden door, ready to push it shut. The following moment only lasted a few seconds, but her adrenaline addled mind made it feel much, much longer.
Her limbs and her subconscious were screaming at her to close the door, slam it shut and run for the window on the other side. If she did that, she might be able to get it open by the time that monster was done with the boy.
But that would leave the boy at the beast's mercy and given how the monster's aggression appeared to be focused on him, she doubted it would end quickly.
"He saved you," came a soft voice, reminding her of the selfless and ridiculous actions the boy had taken to free her and lead her out.
Sure, he was technically to blame for this situation, but she was trapped in that room. The madness of this place had nearly broken her, and he came to her rescue. Without him, she would not be able to get back.
A small part of her disliked the idea of leaving him behind, despite her instincts telling her that the best option was to flee. The soft voice had given her the strength to hold her ground just long enough to for the boy to come rushing through the door.
Seeing her wish granted, she slammed the door shut, her tiny frame possessing more strength than it had any right to. The latch to the door was shut in the next second and before she could make for the window, the monster rammed into the door, hard.
Wooden planks splintered and cracked under the force of the blows leveled against them. The body of the door bent, threatening to snap like a twig.
The monster was going to break it down, she realized with renewed dread.
Something crashed to the floor behind her while she tried in vain to hold the door. Turning around, she saw something very familiar on the ground in the cabin's center.
It was a replica of the monster's weapon, a double-barreled firearm, whose name remained just out of reach of her young mind. The reminder of this imposed ignorance made her angry for a split second. She didn't even know why she was so enthusiastic about the thing.
However, for all her ignorance, there were two things about the object she could not forget, namely because their pursuer had been demonstrating its capabilities to them all night. Those things being what it did and how it worked.
Rushing over to the weapon, she hefted the barrels up towards the door, trying to level the barrels towards where she expected the middle of the monster to be. With one arm, she held the weapon in place, it was a strain, but she needed to make sure her companion knew what to do.
The boy had been the one to pull the gun from its stand on the wall and down to the floor. The attempted had thrown him down too. She called for his attention and pointed towards the gun's trigger.
The boy looked at her, then the trigger and rushed forward. The urgency of the moment made him quick on the pickup. Her attention was grabbed by another and louder snap of wood.
The monster had broken the upper part of the door. The potato sack it wore on its head stuck through, along with one of its meaty arms.
Bang!
She didn't fully understand what happened next. Within the span of a second, her senses were driven to overload by the sheer intensity of what transpired. There was a click from behind her, then a sudden flash accompanied by a burst of sound that left her ears ringing. A thunderous force from the gun she was holding threw her back and to the floor.
It happened so quickly that her mind nearly went into shock, and she forgot her urgency for a moment. Standing up groggily, she tried to wipe the spots from her vision. The ringing was a new annoyance that almost left her head pounding.
When her wits returned to her, she looked to the door and saw a fresh hole inside it, underneath where the monster had broken one for his head. Despite the disorientation and pain she felt a sense of triumph, for once she was the one to trounce one of the monsters inhabiting this accursed world.
With a shake of her head, she banished such vain thoughts and replaced them with the caution that had kept her alive since she had awoken in that tower. There was no point in checking to see if the shot had landed. If the monster was not chasing them, it was either dead or scared off, she didn't care which.
A part of her realized that she never checked to see if the gun was loaded, an angry frown came to her, realizing that had the weapon been empty, they would both be dead.
The boy was back on his feet and the ringing in her ears had subsided enough for her to hear him calling to her. He pulled himself through the window and she followed him, he had seemed to know where he was going and given she had no idea herself, she had decided to follow him.
The pair had found themselves on a beach and she felt the stirring of memory from the sight of it. The intentions of the boy were clear, he wanted to get to whatever was on the other side of the large body of water.
She spotted a large wooden door trapped in the sand just ahead of them and she rushed over. Placing her small hands on its edge, she pushed. The boy joined in and that was the moment she realized he was stronger than her. At the moment, she did not know what to think about that, so she tried to dedicate it to memory.
It was hard to remember things, so hard. The eyes kept trying to steal what she knew away.
The door came loose and rushed into the water. The pair made to jump aboard it as their newly dubbed raft drifted off into the unknown taking them with it.
They both sat on it, the boy had a relaxed posture while she hugged her legs. It was difficult for her to relax, in fact there had likely never been an instant where she could since she came here. Pain wracked the entirety of her body, her arms and legs burned from all the exertion and her muscles threatened to cramp up to the point it felt like her bones were folding in on themselves.
The door drifted across the water in silence and for a moment, she felt like nothing would happen. While the water was deep and scary, she had gone across it before, and nothing happened until she reached land.
All the monsters were on land.
Her mind wandered at the idea. If she had her only small bit of land in this world, she would not need to worry about the monsters or drowning. Namely land that could move if the monsters got clever and followed her.
"Hey," said the boy, she turned to look at him slowly.
There was no way for her to read his expression through that paper bag, even the holes cut out for his eyes didn't show her anything.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Was he worried about her?
She pointed a finger at herself questioningly, to which he gave a nod.
She hummed and nodded in the affirmative.
The reaction seemed to embolden him as he pointed to himself.
"Mono," he said. "My name is Mono."
He held out a hand to her expectantly.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She tilted her head. He wanted to know her name.
She opened her mouth to answer, but whatever she was supposed to say never came out. Then she remembered that she had forgotten her name. Whatever it was had been snatched away from her by the eyes long ago.
In sorrow, she faced the wood they sat on.
"Don't remember," she admitted with a slight cough. It had been so long since she had to speak that her voice had become weak.
"Really?"
The response she gave was a slow nod.
She expected him to be as discouraged as she was, but she was wrong.
"Then how about I call you Six?" he offered.
She looked at him quizzically.
"Six?" she whispered softly. "Why Six?"
He shrugged. "It was written on your music box back at the house. I thought that was your name, but I didn't want to be rude."
Her music box? Then she remembered the one thing that had made her imprisonment bearable. She was so enraptured that she never noticed anything written on the smooth metal shell of the box. Did that matter now? Likely not.
She thought on it for a moment, then she recalled the eyes again. How they stole parts of her with their glare. They had taken so much from her, but now she had a chance to get something that they could not take away. Even if she forgot, Mono would remind her.
"Okay, I'm Six," she muttered with what was likely the first smile since she woke up here.
Mono watched her and she had the suspicion that he was smiling too.
Mono...
…
They all stood in silence, Team RWBY and Team JNPR stood in the hallway outside their personal training arena with palpable trepidation. The only exception was Ruby who was in the midst of reading a book called The Most Dangerous Game and given the smile on her face she was enjoying it. However, this prompted more of the curious looks she often got from those around her since the cover art of the book was a human skull surrounded by grass.
The reason for this tension was the event that was going on in the training arena.
Jaune for one looked around worriedly as the sound of ice shattering rumbled through the doors. Pyrrha stood at his side and he made his worries known to her. "Think she'll pass?"
Pyrrha paused and focused her attention on the door. Her hearing concentrating on the sounds of weapons clashing and the strange sound of ice manifesting from nothing. Pyrrha normally could read the flow of a fight with noise alone, either through pace or recognition of which weapon struck what. While normally impossible to tell the difference, she could read minute detail from the impact noise of different weapons due to her extensive experience inside gladiator arenas. The issue this time was that she had no idea if the weapons she was hearing struck home or just another pillar of ice.
Pyrrha forced a smile, not wanting to discourage Jaune given what was at stake. "I'm sure she's fine."
"I hope so!" chirped Nora. "I'm tired of being stuck here. I wanna go outside again!"
"If you hadn't started that food fight, we wouldn't need to be here at all," chided Ren softly, making Nora deflate.
"I know," whimpered the valkyrie. "Noone will let me live it down."
Yang smirked at the valkyrie's self-deprecation. "Be glad you were knocked out during that fight. Else I would have made what my sis did to you look gentle."
Yang glanced at Ruby hoping for her sister to join in on the teasing as she usually did, but Ruby remained focused on her book, blocking out all outside stimuli. Yang frowned as this was unusual for her little trickster of a sister. Usually, she was acutely aware of what was going on around her, even when engrossed in her reading.
Not today it seemed.
Yang shrugged, her sister was hard to predict and perhaps the book just fit her reading tastes extremely well. Yang has tried to read some of Ruby's collection, but they were not to her liking. While an adrenaline junky who loved danger, Yang preferred it to be real, not speculated on a page. Besides that, what did not interest her reminded her of how different her sister was.
There was not much injustice from people in those books, but when it came to tragedy and the cruelty of the world there was an abundance.
Yang shook her head to clear her musings. Her sister was an anomaly in all things regarding her wants and dislikes, much of the old her was still there but there was little point nitpicking on the difference after seven years.
Deciding to continue her scolding of Nora she said, "Be happy Weiss stepped up, because we were going to miss the mock missions thanks to you."
"I know," muttered Nora. "I know."
"You really think Weiss is up for it?" aske Jaune repeating his question again. "I mean, it is her big sister and even if she wins, Ozpin or Prof Goodwitch might reject it."
"Let's hope so," said Blake as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. "The longer we stay stuck here, the more the Fang go without anyone to stop them."
Normally this would be the moment Weiss shuts Blake's White Fang talk down, but the Ice Princess was preoccupied and Ruby did not seem to care at the moment. After the docks, whenever Blake brought up the Fang, Weiss would talk Blake out of it, often using the fact that they were stuck at the academy as the finishing blow. When Blake got truly argumentative, Ruby stepped in and remined the Faunus girl of the danger her meddling had put them in the last time.
Ruby avoided trouble as a standard and Blake seemed to want to seek it out, that put Ruby against Blake every time.
This time, Yang would have to be the one to keep her partner from doing something stupid. Yang loved danger, but going hunting for what had become a terrorist cell was just a bit too loony for her.
"If we find something on the Fang we tell the headmaster," Yang said sternly. "That was the deal."
Blake looked annoyed and Yang felt the hint of frustration that usually came with this conversation fall upon her.
"He doesn't understand the Fang," argued Blake, pushing herself from the wall. "I do, I'm the only one in Vale who can put an end to what they are up to."
Yang puffed herself up in challenge. "Oh yeah? You don't even know what they are up to and you're hardly the only person to leave the Fang."
The blonde brawler gestured to her little sister. "Rubes saved a guy who left the Fang, remember? And from what she told me, he was some sort of informant, so he probably knew more than you."
"Unlike him, I'm one of the best fighters in the Fang," Blake retorted, but her voice was wavering. "And I was in a high position so maybe I could convince some of them to turn away from what they are doing."
Yang's eyes went half lidded at the hopefulness of her partner. While she was never a believer in any great causes, she was highly devoted to her little sister. If the Fang members had even a fraction of the dedication she had towards Ruby, then they would never be convinced to change course, even with the daughter of their founder telling them otherwise.
Before she could speak, Ruby closed her book and lost her smile. Yang had not recognized the look on her sister at first, but she saw there was a sense of focus on her face, like she was concentrating on something, or pushing something from her mind.
"We agreed no heroics, Blake," chided Ruby.
Before Blake could answer a low rumble shook the walls around them. The air became colder as Weiss' power seeped through the walls and Yang saw something flash on her sister's face. Discomfort? Or was that pain? Then the expression was gone. Yang knew from observation that her sibling had a high pain tolerance, probably just as high as her own. For something to elicit such an expression mush has hurt like a bitch. But such pain would never appear without a more profound reaction as it would have caught Ruby off guard.
Had she just misinterpreted her sister? It would not be the first time.
Yang said nothing but kept an eye open.
"They are causing quite a stir in there," commented Pyrrha. "I thought I heard a Sphinx."
"Think she is winning?" asked Jaune for a third time.
Ruby groaned. "Jaune, she's fine, you need to stop worrying."
"That's easy for you to say," said Nora, pointing a finger at Ruby. "You're not the one who'll be stuck here if she doesn't pull through."
Ruby smiled her innocent smile and shrugged. "That's what I get for being a good girl while bad Nora goes around throwing food in my sister's hair."
Nora stamped her foot on the ground. "Good my but. You knocked me out."
Ruby narrowed her eyes but kept smiling. Then she looked back as Jaune, not giving Nora anymore attention. "Don't worry about Weiss. She'll be just fine."
"You sure?"
Ruby's smile vanished and Yang noticed she looked tired for a moment before the smile turned again.
"Are you forgetting who you are talking about? Weiss, for all she has changed after Initiation, is still a perfectionist. She would not take this challenge if she didn't think she could do it."
Yang nodded, noticing Blake getting pouty over having her topic of discussion discarded. Good, she needs to learn to let go when something does not matter in the moment.
"Yeah," commented Yang. "And the princess went to Ozpin to prove she was ready. I don't think she would do that just because Nora was being a wittle baby."
The valkyrie pouted and crossed her arms while Jaune looked to be more reassured. Pyrrha looked at Yang for a moment and to the blonde's surprise, the gladiator looked angry.
When the brawler gave a knowing grin, Pyrrha's face suddenly turned red as she realized what she had done. Yang was not big on relationships, but thanks to Ruby, she had also developed observational skills. Seeing couples go about and seeing a girl obsess over a boy, either participant of the relationship can get pretty defensive when an outsider elicits positive feelings in their prospective partner. This is especially true when it is one sided or not official.
Yang just never expected to see that in Pyrrha. It must be a first-time crush for her to lose her composure without realizing it.
Yang knew this was going to make for some juicy slumber party talk one day.
Then the noises went silent, and the group felt a slight tension in the air. There was a weight of expectation and only the two sisters amongst them did not feel it. Yang wanted to leave sure, but she would not make a scene.
A minute passed and the doors to the training arena opened. Weiss, Winter and Prof Goodwitch stepped out. Both Weiss and Winter looked slightly ragged and tired, likely due to their extensive fight.
The air turned chilly as the cold air from within drifted into the passageway.
Weiss looked around at her friends, taking in the looks of concern on their faces. With a relieved smile she said the word they hoped to hear.
"I passed."
Less than a second later, Nora jumped forward and encased Weiss in a bear hug.
"Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!"
Glynda watched the group walk away with Nora and Yang waved back towards the teenager at the professor's side. The former did so with far more enthusiasm than the latter.
Ruby stood patiently at the Vice-Headmistress and waved slightly to the departing group. The smile on her face was one of relief and something Glynda had only ever glimpsed in the mirror.
Weariness.
What could she have to be weary about? She was only sixteen and the prime of her life was only getting started.
"You're not going with them to celebrate Weiss' success?" asked Glynda.
"Nope," replied Ruby. "I don't want to risk ruining it for them."
Glynda raised an eyebrow as the little one turned to face her. Ruby was short, just like her mother and that forced her to look up at Glynda.
"What makes you think that?" asked the professor. This sort of attitude was out of character for the normally chipper and mischievous girl. Summer was the same in a way, although she had no reason to deceive others for lack of having anything to hide.
Ruby shrugged. "I suppose I want to have some peace for a bit, and I'd want the same for them today."
"Again, why?"
Ruby sighed. "Professor, I know I don't show it, but I am aware of what happens around me. Three times now I've gone into Vale and each time I've run into trouble. I'd prefer to skip that this time. Save the crime fighting for another day."
"You've gone to Vale before and nothing happened," offered Glynda. "Perhaps you are just discounting those out of caution? Besides, how could your presence affect such happenings?"
Ruby counted off the events on her fingers and had a contemplative look on her face. "Well, I was the one who ran into Torchwick when he robbed that dust store. I didn't stop Blake from going to the docks and I ran into those two thugs when they attacked the bookstore guy. So far, the common denominators here were that they are all a part of the same scheme, whatever it is, and I was there."
"Do you not think this is just paranoia?"
Ruby's face took on a strange expression. At first it looked like she wanted to laugh, then she looked as if on the verge of a grimace. Finaly, she settled on a calm smile.
"If I weren't paranoid, I wouldn't be here," she answered in an eerily calm manner. "I should go now. Have a nice weekend Professor."
The small reaper turned to leave, and Glynda could not help but pity the girl. Had the child's mother been present, things would have been different. The Vice-Headmistress could not help but feel the pangs of regret for not being there as she promised.
In a way, they were, all of them, failures.
Glynda shook these thoughts from her mind and reminded herself about Ruby's unusual dourness. This would need to be reported to Ozpin.
Ruby watched the bullheads make their descent towards the landing pads for the second-year students. There were no more than four as the limited space demanded it. Refueling stations were set up around the transports incase they had to perform some costly maneuvers due to unexpectedly high Grimm presences.
The crews hired to staff these pads waved down the pilots of the aircraft and each came to a safe touchdown.
Silver eyes darted from one bullhead to another, for a moment she considered deploying her Shadow to see which was the one she was looking for. But then she remembered the semblance of one team member that should be present.
He was blind but his semblance allowed him to hear and transmit thought.
"I'm not saying a word while he's around. If Penny can hear me, who's to say he can't?"
Ruby had no argument. Penny was one thing, she was friendly, overly trusting and easy to influence. But there was no reason to tempt fate with someone who had come from Vacuo, where people were stubborn by nature.
The boarding ramps for each bullhead opened and unfolded to reveal their passengers. It did not take long for her to find her targets of inquiry.
Team CVFY stepped out of the third bullhead with their heads low and a lethargic gate, as if a great weight was being carried on their backs.
This was not simply tiredness, there was shame on their faces, and guilt, and anger directed towards themselves.
Ruby knew only that the second years went on a mission together to save a village from a Grimm attack. Judging by their expressions, it must have gone poorly.
She allowed the group to pass uninterrupted until Velvet noticed her.
"Oh, hello Ruby," she greeted trying to push her own sad frown away and Ruby had to force herself to look concerned and push away any critique her highly critical attitude would bring up. Lest she be caught by Fox and sour his opinion of her.
"Hi, Velvet. How'd the mission go?"
The forced smile collapsed, and her frown showed how much despair she was feeling in that moment. Ruby heard her Shadow hum in scrutiny but say nothing else.
"Umm," Velvet stammered. "There… there were just so many. I've… I never thought the Grimm could be so relentless. They cared before when we killed them on other missions, they ran."
The rabbit faunus rubbed her arm. "But this time… This time they just kept coming. Like the people were more important than their own lives."
Ruby had to force herself not to inwardly sneer at the surprise of someone who was supposed to be her superior in terms of experience. The fact that the Grimm hated humanity more than they cared for their own existence was known to her and her sister for years at this point. That it took such a toll on Velvet was the real surprise. Huntresses were supposed to be hardy and resilient. People dying was a tragedy, as always, but Ruby had long accepted the cruelty of the world.
It was the main reason she took her job more seriously than anyone at the academy.
"I'm sorry," said Ruby with a sympathetic smile. "I know you guys must have tried your best."
Velvet seemed to harden at Ruby's words and the red reaper wondered if she had misjudged the faunus girl.
"It still wasn't enough," she said with a hard edge in her voice that surprised Ruby. "Next time will be different."
Ruby smiled, it was fake, but she had to maintain her appearance as an eccentric but understanding person. "If you want to spar, I'm always available. I'm sure my sister would love to join too."
Velvet's expression lightened into a sad smile. Better, bit not perfect. Good, that means the lesson they just learned about the enemy they were being trained to fight stuck.
"Maybe some other day. I need to think for now."
"Sure thing," said Ruby with an expectant tone, as she and her sister were always eager to test themselves against their upper classmen. Even if for only that and little else.
Velvet walked away and Ruby felt it was safe for her to allow her thoughts to go unregulated for the moment.
"They're usual rather confident, especially Coco. Must have been a bad time out there for them to come back like this."
"It must have been a total loss," Ruby mumbled in agreement. "I can't think of anything that would knock them down like this."
"Most astutely deduced, Ms. Ruby Rose."
The red reaper nearly jumped at the sound of the new voice. Prof Oobleck stood there with a back of notes at his side along with his usual messy hair, untidy shirt and comically oversized glasses that somehow obscured his eyes without being mirrored.
"I appear to have startled you. I apologize most profusely," he said with no change in his usual quick manner of speech.
Ruby smiled nervously; it was rare for someone to get the drop on her. Then again, after hearing the giggling in the back of her mind, she realized her Shadow knew he was coming and wanted to make up for lost time when it came to tormenting her.
"It's alright Professor," she intoned.
Oobleck leaned in, examining her like a new species of human. "You appear troubled, is something the matter?"
"With me? Not really. I'm just confused."
"What is it that befuddles your usually keen mind, Ms. Rose? As your professor, it is my duty to elucidate you however I am able."
Ruby inwardly groaned. Out of all the professors, the only one that put her to sleep faster than Oobleck was Port and the latter only because of his repetitive nature rather than his lack of gusto.
Still, she kept her expression neutral and spoke respectfully. Too many fights had started at Signal, and she valued her freedom too much to risk it on something as silly as honesty.
"It's just strange to me how people react to this."
"To what?"
"You know, this," she gestured to the towering spire of the academy behind them. "They see this place as something where celebrities are made or where they can earn money rather than what it is supposed to be."
"Hmm, and what would that be?"
"A place where you learn to fight monsters. Where you are trained to fight so that the people down in the city and the villages might not need to. I don't understand how people can forget that so easily."
Oobleck pushed up his glasses as he appeared to gain some understanding of what she is trying to convey.
"You say this because, unlike the others, you cannot forget such facts even if you dearly want to. Am I correctly assessing your message?"
Ruby nodded. "It is why I chose to come here early rather than wait out two more years at Signal. The thought of coming here for money or fame doesn't make sense to me."
Oobleck nodded. "I see. It is that they do not understand what the role of a huntsmen is that upsets you?"
"Yes/Yes," hissed Ruby and her Shadow in a rare moment of synchronicity. "They don't get it. None of them do. We aren't here to have fun; we aren't here to earn money. We're here to learn to fight the biggest threat to humanity since before we started recording history."
Ruby stomped her foot childishly. "People never give the Grimm the credit they deserve. They are the one problem we can never fix and yet people pretend it is not a problem."
"And this fact is what upsets you. I understand such a feeling. I have seen it before when I once was a student in these halls," Oobleck explained, his voice becoming laced with a pained nostalgia. "Many who pass through these walls do not understand the magnitude of the duty placed on them. Some take years to learn just how dire the wilderness is with such a fearsome foe ready and eager to see us tossed into the annals of forgotten history. Some…"
He paused, as if trying to brace himself from a sudden blow. "Some never get the chance to learn, while those around them have the lesson thrusted upon them. Then they can no longer avoid the lesson, and they regret not learning it sooner."
Oobleck looked to the corridors where Team CVFY had wandered down. "Those second years you were speaking to were not among those who were unaware, but the true scope of what they faced was still beyond them. No longer it would seem and they feel the shame of having underestimated their foe. The gravity of this failure will stay with them I am afraid."
"People only learnt through pain," said Ruby bluntly. "We never take anything seriously unless it makes us uncomfortable."
Oobleck stared at her for a moment, his expression still and his eyes hidden behind his glasses.
"I dour truth, but one that has been proven beyond question. Yes, in fact that is how most huntsmen learn to respect, or at the very least correctly assess the Creatures of Grimm."
He pushed his glasses up again. "I am please to know that I was present when there was an exception during my years here."
"Who was that? Prof Goodwitch? Professor Port?" asked Ruby, planning on letting him drone on for a little bit longer before she moved onto other things.
"Your mother," he said, stunning her for a moment.
"What?"
"My mom?" asked the reaper for the sake clarity.
Seeing he had her attention, he pressed forward. "Yes, Summer was unique among those who attended this academy. Much like you."
"Such as?"
"She was never one to shy away from coming to the defense of others for one. Although you have proven to do that as well, she preferred to be more diplomatic rather than aggressive."
A smile came to the professor. "But do not let that fool you. She was more than willing to fight if it meant a swift end to the conflict."
"The best war is one that is short, even if brutal."
"Another sad but proven truth. But above those, she was much like you in her opinion of what a huntress is. One who is trained to fight in the defense of those who cannot. Sadly, the rest of her team did not see things the same way as she did and it took them a long time to understand her point of view."
Oobleck went silent for a moment. "Some never did if I am to be accurate."
"Was she a good huntress?" asked Ruby.
"One of the best I had the pleasure of knowing Ms. Rose," Oobleck said in a lower tone of voice than usual. "When we all got the news, it hurt a great many of the professors here. Your family was not alone in your pain. The Vice-Headmistress felt the pain the most keenly out of all of us."
"Ms. Goodwitch?"
"Yes," nodded Oobleck. "She and Summer were close friends, as close as they were with their own teammates in fact. It was a hard time."
Ruby said nothing and turned her head to the floor.
Oobleck coughed and stood up straighter. "Regardless. Know that you are not alone in your opinions. Summer herself never underestimated the Grimm. The Headmaster smiles on students with the maturity to see this simple truth. Indeed, we often put our students at risk to teach them this. It does not always work but it is something that must be understood if one is to become a proper huntsman."
"Velvet said there were too many of them. How did my mom get around that? I'm tough but I'm just one person and my team is only four. If CVFY got overwhelmed by numbers how can we stop that?"
"A worthy question and one very few ask due to overconfidence in their own abilities. Indeed, a well prepared team of huntsmen can slay a score or a hundred or even a thousand Grimm with enough effort."
He took in a breath. "This is rarely the case; most prefer to go in guns blazing and hope for the best while those who plan tend to be ignored. Summer was in the latter category although she was a swift planner so her team of brutes, forgive the term but that was your father back then along with the rest of them."
Ruby smiled as the jest even if she did not find it funny.
"Where was I, oh yes. She was good at formulating strategies quickly so she would be able to convince those who would prefer to face the Grimm head on to follow her. Her plans were often bold and daring which played to her advantage. Most strategists have a habit of trying to minimize risk and loss rather than maximize the possible gain."
Oobleck again leaned down to Ruby. "I see much of what she was in you. Even if you do not see it yourself."
Ruby chuckled. "Well, it's not like I was old enough to draw comparisons back then."
"A fair rebuttal," Oobleck admitted. "Now, I must be off. I bid you a good day, Ms. Rose. I pray you take these words to heart, and I look forward to your performance during the mock missions."
"Thank you, Professor."
"Moron doesn't know anything about us."
Ruby sat at one of the desks in her dorm room. Due to the increase in space compared to before, it allowed each of them to have their own separate desks, something Weiss was very happy about. Ruby's focus was on the paper before her with a pencil in her hand. The only sound was her scratching at the parchment on the before her.
Then the door to the dorm slid open and in came the angry footsteps of Blake and Weiss.
"I don't get why you are so against this," said Blake. "We have a chance to see what they are up to."
"And we've told you a hundred times now that it's not our place to deal with them now," rebutted Weiss. "We've already gotten in enough trouble because of the Fang, and we are not doing it again."
Ruby gritted her teeth as her concentration on her drawing broke and the pain of her hunger spiked with new voracity. She could feel it gnawing at her core, begging her to feed it. Reinforcing her will, she beat it down and put the pencil to the side as Yang walked inside.
"Another White Fang argument?" asked Ruby.
Her sister's shoulders sagged a bit, but she looked less frazzled than Weiss. "Blake sneaked away during our brunch and went to that bookstore guy you saved. She and him had a fat chat with a lot of begging on her part to hand over any info on what the Fang are doing with all that dust."
Ruby raised an eyebrow. She had never bothered to ask because she assumed he didn't know anything. With the possibility of being proven wrong, her interest was piqued.
"What did he say?"
Yang shrugged. "Not much, just said they were moving around Mount Glen. Other than that he was as clueless as the rest of us."
"On purpose probably," muttered Ruby. "To protect himself and say he didn't sell anyone out."
"And look at where that got him. Should have taken all he could and sold it to the police for help moving if you ask me."
Ruby firmed her jaw. She would have left the bookstore and vanished altogether. The fact that the Fang's intelligence operatives are willing to abandon them now that they are going even further into violence only shows they can't be relied on to respect the choices of others anymore.
Yang raised her hands to show her own ignorance. "Can't say those ideas tend to work. Not when the group is willing to kill you for walking away."
"They weren't always like that!" exclaimed Blake, the comment having pulled her away from her argument with Weiss.
"But they are like that now," said Yang in a tone that would make someone listening from outside think she was speaking to a child. "What they were like before you left does not matter, the clock only goes forward, Blake, not backwards to when we were happy."
"Exactly," added Weiss. "Going to that rally is not only a waste of time, but dangerous."
"What rally?" asked Ruby.
"The Fang are hosting a recruitment rally tonight," explained Blake with slight hope that her leader would listen to her. "If we go there we can…"
"You can what?" cut in Weiss. "Preach that they can coexist with humans? That the Fang is lying to them and that they have lost their way?"
Blake was about to speak but Weiss did not stop.
"Did you ever consider that the people going there have already made up their minds? Do you think I came to Beacon without my mind made up? Or these two over here?" intoned Weiss while gesturing at the Xiao-Long Rose sisters.
Blake paused, but only for a few seconds as her own brand of stubbornness reasserted itself.
"But if we don't do anything then the Fang…"
"Will keep going regardless," snapped Weiss. "You think they care about the lives of the other Faunus anymore. This isn't about justice or equality. It stopped being about that a long time ago. This is about revenge and believe me that is a strong motivator."
"True."
Ruby nodded along with her Shadow while Yang stood passively to the side.
"We can do nothing!" snarled Blake with trembling fists. "Someone has to stop them. If not me then who?"
"We are with you," said Yang. "But we can't run off like crazy anymore. Ozpin has his eyes on us and especially Weiss. He won't just let us do as we want."
"She's not wrong," agreed Ruby. "Weiss is a Maiden now and that matters more to them than the Fang does right now. If we are going to do anything about the Fang we need to be selective here, not run off to anything we hear about."
"Not to mention the Fang are constantly hurting their cause each day," commented Weiss.
Blake blinked. "How?"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Their slapped on the news for every single act of terror they commit now, and it isn't even just counter propaganda anymore, like it was is Atlas. All they have to do is report the news and that's that."
"Face it, Blake," said Ruby. "It's just not worth the trouble. Disrupt one rally? They'll just host another and the same people you stopped before will just show up to that one."
"But… but…"
"No more buts!" shouted the red reaper.
{Hypnosis-Tobias Lilja Little Nightmares Soundtrack}
Ruby stood up from her seat and stared at the faunus. Weiss felt a strange shiver run down her spine as she felt something in the air. It was not fear, but something else, something that prickled at the back of her brain.
Yang felt it too, her hair suddenly felt stiff and frail, something she goes to great expense to avoid. For some reason, she felt like she had to listen to her sister, no matter what the pretext of the conversation was at this point.
"This little crusade of yours is getting you nothing but grief. It's time to stop. We are here to become huntresses."
A finger pointed at the faunus. "You are here to be a huntress! Not a counter revolutionary! If you want to go after the Fang, then you'll be quitting this team and don't expect me to welcome you back if you regret your choice."
Blake was dumbstruck while Weiss was left in uncertainty.
Yang however just shot the faunus a stare that conveyed just how serious Ruby was. The red reaper was willing to give Blake a chance, but she was not willing to tolerate deliberate and constant sources of danger. If she did, then she would just hide in some remote village somewhere and just let the Grimm ravage the world to their black hearts' content.
Blake, for her part, found it difficult to think clearly, it was as if a fog had slipped into her mind and made her unable to focus on anything beyond the words being spoken to her. Still, she tried to formulate an argument. Why her goal was to the betterment of Faunus everywhere and why they should help her.
"I… I just want to keep people from getting hurt," she said shaking her head. "I just want the Fang to stop with this."
"Going to that rally will do the opposite," said Ruby. "They'll see what you are doing and try harder next time. People like them don't see opposition as an indication that they are wrong, but that their enemies are afraid. You'll just make it worse."
"No… no it won't. They'll see how violent the Fang are if they attack me and…"
"And people will get hurt."
Blake froze as the fog cleared just enough for her to understand that her motive ran counter to her actions. Caught in this logical contradiction, the fog reasserted itself to keep her from going into a state of righteous denial.
Ruby, seeing that Blake was stuck, asked the next question. "Are you really willing to leave the team just because you can't let the past go? They aren't your team anymore, you walked away. Are you so quick to abandon your friends that you'll leave us because they are committing crime?"
The words somehow felt like a physical force that gave Blake a subtle shove that threw her off balance. Stumbling backward, she was forced to sit on her bed before she could lose her balance completely.
The room went quiet for a minute, and Blake with a slow breath conceded. "I… I suppose I am acting rashly. I'm-I was just wracked by guilt. I felt that if I had stayed with them, I might have been able to stop them. But by the time I realized what had happened to them it was already too late. A part of me knew that I think. That's why I ran, or at least that's the reason I give myself."
The strange sensation in the room lifted and Yang felt it was alright to move next to her partner and give her a friendly hug.
"We'll figure something out when they show their faces. For now, how about we just focus on each other aye?"
Blake remained still for a moment, then she nodded. "I can do that. Can I just rest for a bit? All the stress is making it hard to think."
Yang stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "Sure thing, kitty cat. We'll go to the cafeteria to get something to much while we wait."
Walking up to the door, Yang turned to her fellow teammates. "You two coming? I know you must be starving Rubes."
"More than you can ever understand."
"Guilty," admitted Ruby with a smile. "Let me just put my stuff away and I'll follow along."
"Well, I'm certainly hungry now that we've just finished an hour-long argument," Weiss said before joining Yang at the door.
Ruby turned back to her desk and looked at the image she was drawing one last time. It was of a small boy with a trench coat and a paper bag over his head. The image brought back a sense of longing, sadness and guilt.
Checking to see Blake getting comfortable on her bed while still fully clothed in her huntress outfit, Ruby closed her scrapbook shut and slid it underneath her pillow.
Then she walked out, hoping beyond hope that some would appease the monster trying to get her attack her partner.
Hello. I am back. Sorry for the long wait. Little Nightmares has been a difficult thing for me to press forward on. Namely because I was dealing with a heavy case of writer's block combined with a lot of stress in my day to day life. That is why this chapter is so short, I'm trying to readjust my thoughts.
Times are getting rough as we all get older. Am I right or am I left, because I am not wrong.
Anyway. I am working on adjusting things to that I can do better because I do like delivering stories for those who genuinely enjoy them. I'm a selfish asshat but that does not mean I don't care.
See ya next time when we head to Mount Glen.