Ugh... Disclaimers suck.

Own[RWBY=0]

1=True, 0=False.

I know you didn't plan this

You tried to do what's right.

But in the middle of this madness

I'm the one you left to win this fight

RWBY Volume 1 Soundtrack - Red Like Roses Part II

Dad led me and Yang through the hospital, clutching the both of us in tight hugs and blankets, as if he was afraid that we'd disappear if he let us out of his sight for a while. Yang was shivering and softly weeping, which didn't exactly line up with the Yang I was use to, but then again, I had absolutely no damn idea what the heck was going on anymore. We shambled through the hospital's darkened corridors until we finally reached my room again.

Dad sat me down on the edge of my bed, while Yang shakily moved over to a nearby chair. She flopped into the cushions of the modest furnishing, tugging her blanket tight around her body. Yang's eyes took on a faraway quality, appearing to be staring at something in another dimension. Once Dad was satisfied that I hadn't suffered any visible injuries, he gave a loud sigh of relief and sagged into another chair.

At least that wasn't much different at all from the Dad I knew, anyway. It was almost enough to bring a smile to my face, just seeing him fuss over me, like I was a kid on her first day at Signal.

"Hey, Ruby," he began, "How are you feeling?"

I gave him a disarming smile. "Better. I was having problems seeing anything really clearly at all earlier, but using my Semblance fixed that."

Dad nodded, but he furrowed his eyebrows together. "I'm glad to hear that, Ruby, but would you mind telling me what a Semblance is?"

I raised my own eyebrow at that. "You... You don't know?" I asked.

He shook his head. That... Probably didn't mean anything good. Suddenly, I didn't really feel all that safe around Taiyang Xiao Long and Yang Xiao Long, or at least the people that looked almost exactly like them. I inched my way over the edge of my bed, making my way in between the hospital room's window and the other two occupants of my room.

Hopefully, they wouldn't notice that. My movement could probably be construed as getting into a more comfortable position to explain myself.

"But Dad," I continued, "you, of all people, should know what a Semblance is! You even unlocked mine and Yang's Auras the day we applied to Signal!"

"Uh... I don't remember doing any of that," he turned to Yang. "Do you remember me doing anything like that?" She shook her head in response.

Crap. That didn't sound good.

"Look, Ruby," Dad kept going, "Whatever you've gotten involved with as of late is probably your business, but we're worried about you. All of us. Me, your sister, your uncle, your mother-"

I didn't hear anything past that. My mind just went blank, as it tried to process what my Dad was apparently saying. He told me that my mom was worried about me, but that just wasn't possible.

After all, memories can't worry about the living. And Summer Rose was little more than a memory now. Taiyang Xiao Long was supposed to know that. Yang Xiao Long was supposed to understand that. But they didn't. My eyes widened as I realized what the only logical explanation for this was.

This wasn't my dad, Taiyang Xiao Long, nor was this my sister, Yang Xiao Long. They must've been impostors set up by one of our enemies, out to get us. Who it was didn't matter, just that I had to escape their clutches.

Okay, look. I wasn't exactly thinking in the right frame of mind at the time, alright?

I cast a furtive glance out the hospital room window. It looked to be about a five-story drop. I figured my Aura was about at least 60% back to normal, and I could take that height, no problem. Probably.

The Dad lookalike was still talking, not really looking at anything in particular, and the Yang lookalike was staring at him as he talked. It was almost too perfect, to be honest. I'd expected more out of professionals.

For the second time that night, I triggered my Semblance, hopping off the bed at a breakneck speed and sprinting at the window, hitting the glass in a powerful shoulder-check. My charge nearly pulverized the window and I felt my Aura being pelted with miniscule glass shards as I flew through the air. The aluminum blinds covering the window didn't stand a chance, and parted in halves when faced with my velocity. My body rushed through the city's night sky, and for a few glorious seconds, I felt the freedom that came with using my speed, after quite a long time of roughing it and not getting to cut loose. Soon, I felt gravity return, pulling me back to the ground with its undeniable force.

"RUBY!" I heard from behind me, but I ignored the shout as if it hadn't been there at all, instead focusing solely on my flight.

Right in front of me was a medium-sized apartment building. It wasn't more than a couple of stories lower than my own room, but at the speed I was going, it was low enough. I hit the roof at an inelegant tumble, rather than the dignified roll I was going for, causing me to skid across the uncomfortable concrete. If I hadn't had my Aura to protect me, I would have left behind a mile of scraped skin as a testament to my landing strategy.

"RUBY! ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?! DON'T WORRY, WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU! STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!" The commanding shout galvanized my paralyzed muscles into action, and I slowly got up, groaning in pain. "HEY! RUBY! WHAT'RE YOU DOING?! JUST STAY THERE, WE'LL COME FOR YOU!" I ignored that one, too, and continued getting up before I was halted by another shout.

"RUBES!" That was Yang's voice. I stopped, but shook my head to clear it, and kept going. I limped (ow, must've pulled something in the fall) to a nearby metal door, and proceeded to kick the thing down. I cringed at the noise it made as it crashed to the floor, and walked inside, ignoring the cries coming from my hospital room.

I made my way through the apartment complex, floor by floor, as quietly as I could, to keep from disturbing the tenants. There were a few articles of clothing lying about, here and there, hanging from open windows, probably left out to dry by their owners. It was wrong, I knew, but I couldn't just go around in a hospital gown in public, so I found a gray t-shirt with some band name I'd never heard of on it, a pair of khaki cargo shorts, a dark hoodie, and a pair of lady stilts. I dropped that last one in disgust, and quickly found a pair of worn-out sneakers to wear. By the time I'd gotten to the ground floor and into the street, I was presentable, if at least decent enough for walking about.

I shivered in the frigid night air, which was suddenly a lot more chilly than I had remembered it being earlier.

I looked around. The streetlamps were all blazing brightly, so as to ward off the darkness of the night, and the city's buildings were almost all darkened as their occupants checked out for the night. However, I could see one building, among a few others, whose lights were lit up like so many candles, indicating them being open for the night. It was a bit strange to see so many halogen and fluorescent lights instead of the holograms that I was more than used to, but things might be different in whatever part of the city I was in.

I headed to the building, a convenience store, I assumed, due to the fact that it was still open at this late hour, and the fact that through the windows I could see various commodities, like candy bars and chip bags and soda bottles. As I entered, the glass doors slid open automatically and I stepped into the store.

I was hit with a blast of warmed air as soon as I breached the automatic doors, and I basked in it for a little while, savoring the relief from the cold outside on the bare skin of my face, neck, hands, and shins. The cashier behind the register, a young-ish woman with blond hair and blue highlights, slowly chewing gum, gave me a wary sideways glance, before returning to absently poking at a device with a screen (it kinda looked like the older models of Scrolls I'd see some veteran Huntsmen walking around with, with no holographic technology, nor any sort of expanding display).

I looked around the store, eyeing various cheaply made wares, like keychains and postcards, along with rows and rows of junk food, in the form of bags of chips and candy bars, and a squad of refrigerators stood brilliantly at the far end of the store, keeping various bottles of soda and alcohol nice and chilled. I skimmed the aisles, finally choosing a pair of the more healthy-looking granola bars and picking up a tall can of some sort of iced tea from a refrigerator. There was also a heating machine filled with doughnuts, and after a moment of deliberation, I picked out a circle with pink frosting and sprinkles liberally adorning it.

I brought the items to the front of the shop, and the cashier gave me a look before scanning the items and reading off the price of the food I'd wanted.

"That'll be nine dollars and thirty-five cents, miss," she told me. Dollars? What about Lien? What a weird town...

I searched the pockets of my appropriated cargo shorts, looking for the "dollars" in question. I found a paper note in my back pocket, labeled "TWENTY DOLLARS". I handed it to the cashier, who nodded and opened the register, pulling out more paper notes, instead of the neat plastic Lien cards I was used to, along with some metal coins. She did it with extreme slowness and laziness, as if she absolutely didn't care about doing her job efficiently.

She was so "absorbed" within her work and her old Scroll that she didn't notice another person coming through the door. I noticed him in my peripheral vision- a young guy wearing dark clothes and a hoodie, like mine, except his hood was pulled up to cover his head. His hands were in his pockets, and his gaze kept sweeping left and right, back and forth, which looked mighty suspicious, to be honest. I ignored him, though, as the cashier had finally finished sorting out my change.

"Here's your change-" she managed to say, before the guy barged in, shoving me down to the floor. I let out a cry of shock, and hit the ground with about as much grace as a fish floundering on land.

"You, little girl!" the newcomer bellowed at me. "Stay the fuck down if you know what's good for you!" I raised a brow at his harsh words, but evidently he wasn't very good at being scary, as his voice cracked at right around the "what" of his sentence. By the time I recovered enough to try to retaliate with a smart remark, he'd already turned his attention to the cashier. He pushed his hand into one of his hoodie's pockets. "You! Bitch with the dumb hair! Gimme all the money in the machine, on the pronto!"

"Like hell I will!" bit back the cashier's miffed reply. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"Fine, be that way," he shot back. He withdrew his hand from his pocket, pulling out a large, black pistol with a small trigger and trigger guard, a slim frame, and straight, pronounced rubber grips on the sides, and pointed it at the cashier, clicking the hammer back into a cocked position. "Does this make you feel like helping me out, doll?" There was a slight tremor to his voice, belying a certain nervousness fueling his actions.

Oh no. That's not good.

"Oh God, okay, just please don't shoot." The cashier hurriedly complied, shakily snatching notes out of the register and handing them to the robber, who let out a breath of relief when he thought the attendant wasn't looking. Okay, that was not going to go down while I was here. I mean, I did it before, just to get into Beacon, how hard could it be?

"Hey!" I yelled at the guy, standing up and hoping to get his attention off of the woman. I got it, all right.

"Oh shit!" he yelped, startled, evidently, by me. He fumbled with his gun, awkwardly pointing it at me. Evidently the weapon had a hair trigger, because as his nerves were absolutely shot, he loosed a round and shot me in the forehead.

BANG!

A heavy bullet smashed into my head, imparting its force into throwing my skull so hard backwards that it nearly gave me whiplash just thinking about it. If I had been a little weaker, I'd've been done for, easy, right on the spot. However, my Aura was just strong enough to stop the bullet before it could do my brains in. My balance was off, and I was knocked off my feet, beginning a fall to the floor.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap!" I heard the gunman panic, but I didn't have time to pay attention to his rambling. Right until the last moment as my feet started to leave the ground, I kicked off as hard as I could, propelling myself into a clean backflip and letting me kick the gun out of his hands in the process. I landed in a perfect three-point landing, gazing up at the look of shock that adorned the guy's face as he nursed his wrist and his gun clattered to the floor. His eyes flicked back and forth for a second between me and the gun on the ground, as if weighing his options.

I didn't give him the chance. I rushed him in a clumsy tackle, feeling the wind escape his lungs from the force of my offensive. We crashed to the ground in a clumsy, flailing pile of limbs until I ultimately came out on top. He stared up at me, eyes full of fear, until I ended the fight.

By taking a page out of my sister's book.

And punching him in the head.

He dropped like a stone and fell unconscious, tongue lolling out of his mouth like a dog's. I felt my forehead where I'd been shot, and touched a trickle of blood, surrounded by the beginnings of a nasty bruise. I drew in a couple of deep breaths before rising to my full (admittedly not very tall) height, and looked back at the cashier.

She stared back at me, eyes widened and jaw agape. I reached over and collected what I'd bought in a bag, and retrieved my change.

The cashier was still staring at me as I fled from the store, returning myself to the frigid air and munching on the donut as I did.

AN: This one's a short one, but it's kinda necessary for me to do, since some people need to figure out that neither I, nor this story, are dead. Yet. It's not my proudest piece of fiction, but I hope it does well enough. I'll see you guys later. For now, I think I'll get to working on Steven's Huntress next.

Just a reminder though, that the reviews section is for Comments and Criticism. I want to become a better writer, and critics are a good way to improve, so long as they're not assholes. If you leave a question in a guest review, I won't be able to answer it. If you have a question that needs answering, log in and post a review, or PM me.

Thanks!

-AnonymousInsomnia