Chapter 17

Midnight Masquerade

*BING!*

The automated doors opened and the caped-girl was awed by the west side of Vale and all the spectacular lights. She could even see twinkling from the Isle of Patch dancing in the distance, almost calling her home. If Ruby looked hard enough, she thought she could see Signal.

'Beacon is my home now,' she thought. 'Not Signal, and not Patchwork...'

Ruby realized she wasn't even in the main room yet, but found herself wanting to explore every nook and cranny of the floor. She ran into the visitor's room to get another look of the city but was stopped in her tracks. A soldier lay on the ground unconscious.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat. "S-Sir, are you alright?"

She ran to him but her heels caused her to trip. Kneeling by his side, she tossed her shoes and checked his pulse. He was breathing, but just barely.

"It's going to be okay," she promised. "I'm going to find help."

Ruby jumped up and ran back to the entrance. She pushed the button for the elevator but the machine didn't make a noise. She pounded on the doors hoping to get it's attention, and seeing no other option, she started down the main hall. If she could turn the main computer back online, it might let her out.

Before Ruby entered the room however, she was greeted by a familiar scent and was paralyzed with fear. The air smelt like copper and rust.

"Oh no…" she gasped as she saw three bodies on the floor, all covered in blood.

'Not again...'

Ruby wanted nothing more than to hide under her hood like when she was a kid, but continued on despite her fear.

She avoided the puddle of blood by climbing atop the information desk as the thought of walking through someone's blood barefoot disturbed her greatly. She put her hand atop a desktop scroll and noticed a bullet hole. In fact as she gazed about the room, she saw many bullet holes. Unbeknownst to the caped-girl, her huntress training kicked in and a pattern quickly formed in her mind.

'Most of the bullet holes are in that corner, which probably means that's the origin point,' she reasoned. 'Someone rushed the soldiers, darting right and left before attacking.'

It sickened her to see the lifeless bodies of the guards, but it was made easier that Ruby couldn't see their faces underneath the helmets. They almost looked like robots under their armor but she knew better. The only comfort she received was that by the location and size of their wounds, the soldiers had died almost instantly. Whatever stabbed them however, was incredibly sharp and its wielder had a massive amount of aura to penetrate Mark VII armor. Even Crescent Rose would have trouble accomplishing such a task.

Ruby bent down and picked up a fallen soldier's rifle as whoever had done this could still be hiding in the dimly lit room. She took a moment to get accustomed to the new weapon's weight. An ARC-70 was standard issue in the Atlesian military and Ruby had handled them countless times at Signal, and had very nearly modeled Crescent Rose on it before settling on a sniper rifle.

She checked to make sure the weapon was cocked and had ammo before letting her bare feet touch the ground again. She aimed her rifle at the information desk on the opposite side of the room as that would be the best place to hide. Without warning, she opened fire and a dark figure jumped out. She let go of the trigger but never let the murderer out of her crosshairs.

Ruby could tell the intruder was a woman from her figure even with a mask obscuring her face. She wore a black outfit with a belt strapped around her waist that Ruby recognized as a combat dust container similar to the one her partner wore. What stood out the most however was the Grimm mask. It reminded her of the White Fang masks but larger and much more detailed and depicting a smiling Beowolf, making Ruby shudder at the uncanny likeness.

"The police are on the way!" she yelled as sharply as she could. "Give up or else..." The smiling Beowolf tilted its head as if it were mocking her. She knew it was a waste of time trying to bluff. The woman had just murdered three soldiers. No fifteen year old girl wearing a dress was going to intimidate this monster.

The woman charged and Ruby opened fire, and just as she suspected the intruder darted back and forth dodging her bullets. Her dust containers opened but Ruby was surprised to see they were only filled with sand, but her eyes widened as the intruder held out an arm, setting the sand aflame creating a black sword with a glyph for each hand.

'That's obsidian!' Ruby cried to herself. With this woman's aura, Ruby had little doubt it could cut through almost anything not aura protected. Her dress began to feel even thinner.

The woman continued her charge, this time deflecting the bullets and Ruby immediately used her semblance to get away. All she could do was hope to stall her long enough for help to arrive. Without Crescent Rose, she was a sitting duck.

Once again the woman charged and Ruby sped to the other side of the room for safety. The Beowolf mask nodded as if impressed, and opened her sand container spilling it across the floor.

'What is she doing?'

The woman created a flame glyph between her swords and drove them into the sand, which turned to jagged glass on contact and scattered across the room. Ruby jumped atop a table as red glass flew around her, letting out an ear piercing cry so loud she had to cover her ears. Glass all around the room began shattering, including the large ceiling to floor windows Ruby had so desperately wanted to see out of. The entire room was now covered in glass including her.

Ruby shielded her face but could feel the glass cutting her exposed skin. Her aura absorbed the worst of it, but she hadn't been expecting an attack like that. She looked down and saw how every inch of the room was covered in sharp glass, and when she raised her eyes, the woman was already swinging for her head. She raised her gun in defense and the obsidian blades sent shock waves through her arms as they landed. Ruby put all of her aura into the gun but even still the blades were slowly cutting their way to her skin.

By the time her gun had been nearly sawed in half, Ruby felt her aura leaving her. She was giving it everything she had but suspected the woman was hardly trying. Ruby only saw one way out, so she flared her semblance and held her breath. She dropped her gun just as it was sawed apart, and dashed to the other side of the room when the most excruciating pain she had ever felt hit her. She landed on her knees and rolled across the floor in a ball screaming.

"AAAAHHHHH!"

She looked down at her feet and saw they were impaled by glass and cut to pieces. She yelled again as she pulled a large chunk from her left foot, and as the shard was extracted, she could feel a burning sensation. Looking at the glass she could see traces of red dust. She cradled her tattered feet in her hands but was interrupted from her misery by the sound of crunching glass, and could only watch in horror as the Beowolf woman stalked her prey.

Ruby struggled to her knees as the executioner approached, refusing to let it end this way.

The woman took careful aim and cut through a cloud of rose petals. The girl disappeared, but her cries from across the room clued her on the girl's new location. She noticed blood smeared on the main computer and realized her plan.

Ruby didn't even try to hide the tears or the whimpers as she landed on the glass. She had left a bloody trail across the room to the entrance of the elevators, the pain almost unimaginable as her body shook. Once again, Ruby heard the sound of her executioner coming for her. In one last act of desperation, she reached out will all her aura left and flared her semblance. She waved an arm and hundreds of shards of glass flew towards the masked woman as if a great gust of wind blew them.

A fire appeared causing her to shield her eyes, and watched helplessly as the glass turned into tiny fragments that sparkled in the light as they fell. Ruby couldn't help but be in awe of their beauty and cruelty.

'It's a Beowolf just like before. It's almost fitting isn't it Mom?'

The woman kept getting closer and Ruby could only stare into the soulless eyes of the monster. The woman readied her blade, taking her time, almost as if she were undecided in how the girl should die.

BING!

The elevator doors opened causing Ruby's breath to catch, but she was still at the monster's mercy.

"Stop!" cried a man with a deep voice. They both looked up to see General Ironwood and five of his men beside him, all with rifles pointed at the masked woman's chest.

"Don't move, or we'll shoot! Now, drop your weapons!"

The woman complied but Ruby could hear her giggling. She turned to her and glanced at her feet.

"I hope you enjoy the glass slippers," she said cruelly. The woman's clothes burnt away leaving her in a orange dress that seemed to be made of flames. "They suit you."

The men opened fire but a red glyph appeared around her, and it was as if all the air had been sucked out of Ruby's lungs. She could feel her skin beginning to burn, and realized the woman had decided on how she should die. Ruby used her last drops of aura and rolled out of the circle and underneath the hail of bullets just as the woman erupted into flames and all that was left was a pile of sand.

Ironwood instantly ran to her side, yelling at his men to call a medic.

"Are you alright, miss?" he asked, inspecting her countless injuries, but mainly focusing on her gruesome feet.

Ruby grimaced, coughing but finally nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak. Ironwood swept the glass away from a table before lifting her as gently as he could onto it. She yelped but kept her complaints to herself. With hesitation, she looked down barely recognized her own feet under all the blood and glass.

'I hope you enjoy the glass slippers...'

She pulled at her cross necklace and held onto it fondly through her tears.

"Thank you," Ruby said warmly. For the second time in nearly a week, she had stared death in the face and lived. Her grin faded however as another wave of pain crashed down on her.

"What's going on!?" Yang cried. "Where's Ruby!?"

Her teammates scoured the dance floor but couldn't find younger girl.

"I don't know," Weiss said out of breath. "You don't think she was up there do you?"

All three girls stared at the source of the explosion with increasing dread. Ruby had always been obsessed with the CCT, and now she was missing. They had heard the explosion from within the ballroom and ran outside with the rest of the students and staff to see what happened. General Ironwood had taken a squad of soldiers with him into the tower moments before while Professor Goodwitch began leading the students away.

Yang's tears had fallen to her cheeks thinking of her sister being up there. She wanted so badly for her to have just gone home fed up with the dance, and when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned ready to hug her baby sister and scold her for making her worry, but looked up to see the headmaster looking down at her with concerned eyes.

"Miss Xiao Long," he said in a hushed voice. "I'm afraid you and your teammates need to return to Beacon. Miss Rose has been in an accident."

"No..." Weiss covered her mouth, shaking her head.

Yang lost all feeling in her body, this feeling all too familiar to her.

"Your sister is in stable condition, but you need to return to the Beacon medical bay and wait for her there."

"What?" Yang asked confused. If Ruby was in the CCT that was where she was supposed to be. "Why does she need a doctor? She isn't sick. Is she?"

Her mind refused to connect the dots between an explosion and her baby sister.

"Yang," Blake said, grabbing her hand. "We need to go. I'm sure Ruby's alright. We'll see her back at Beacon." The faunus knew her partner wasn't thinking clearly. How could she? Yang cared for her sister more than anything.

The blonde nodded but hesitated. She didn't know where Beacon was. Weiss grabbed her other hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, and together she and Blake led her away onto a nearby airship Ozpin had gestured toward. They embraced each other, refusing to let go, reassuring each other that their little Ruby would be alright.

(A/N: The point of this chapter was for you to hate Cinder, and I hope I succeeded. I also I hope I didn't go too far. I don't believe this is too dark. I wish to capture as much of the feeling of the show as I can while making it more serious and obviously putting my own twist on things. I hope I'm balancing things well for all of you. I thought about having Ruby call for Crescent Rose but I wanted to put her at as much of a disadvantage as possible. Without Crescent Rose Ruby's greatest weapon is her speed but Cinder takes that from her. Not only is that pretty villainous but pretty smart in my opinion. Thank you so much for reading and sticking with me. You guys are fantastic. Be sure to leave some feedback. I really appreciate it. All credit goes to my Lord and Savior who has made all of this possible. God bless)