Chapter 2
As they filed into Professor Ozpin's ridiculously big office with its ridiculously big clock and the open section of wall with its ridiculously big gears, that he at least had enough sense to wall off with glass, Ruby was starting to think that they might have screwed up somewhere. They couldn't quite put thei— her finger on it though. Well, there was the part where th— she fell for Yang's obvious bait, calling her clingy. That was just embarrassing. But that was what got her caught, not what Yang was actually mad about.
She hates us!
Mommy hates us!
That's why she left!
Yang would tell th— her why she was mad when this was all done though, when they were alone. Ruby was lucky, most kids didn't get to have a nice mo— sister like her. But since she didn't need to worry about why Yang was angry right now, she was free to turn her attention to more immediate problems, like surviving the next couple minutes.
They want to hurt Mommy!
We have to stop them!
Hurt them first!
Figuratively, not literally. Th— she was pretty sure that Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch wouldn't actually try to murder her and Yang. They were huntsmen after all, they protected people.
THEY DIDN'T PROTECT US!
Nobody did, until Mommy came.
But if they did try, Ruby was ready. They had all of their knives with them, the ones in their suitcase, the ones strapped to their ankles and their calves and their thighs, the ones hidden in their sleeves, the ones in their cloak. Most important of all, they had the ones that nobody could ever take from them. Two curved, double-edged daggers, as long and wide as their forearms, hung at their sides and four other knives of different kinds were tucked into sheaths on the back of their belt, underneath their cloak. Those four were their strongest Noble Phanta— Semblance ability.
They could only use Maria the Ripper once before collapsing from aura exhaustion, but Goodwitch was a woman. They could fulfill all three conditions if they attacked her and used their other Nob— Semblance ability. The night, the mist, and the woman. Goodwitch would die to The Holy Maiden of Dismemberment as surely as the birds to the mist.
Use it!
Use it!
They just needed to make sure Ozpin was dead first, or Mommy would have to fight him on her own.
No!
We can't leave Mommy alone!
"Ruby Rose," Professor Ozpin said as he rounded his desk and sat down.
Professor Goodwitch used her Semblance to telekinetically pull a set of chairs in front of the desk so that Ruby and Yang could sit down, and Professor Ozpin opened the hidden compartment where he kept his cookies and hot chocolate - not poisoned, Ruby knew from her previous visit - and pulled out a plate and offered some to her and Yang, then pulled out a mug of hot chocolate for himself. Yang took two cookies, so Ruby only grabbed two too. It was alright though, she'd already gotten some before so two was enough for now.
While she was reaching for the cookies, he leaned close and looked into her eyes.
"You have… silver eyes."
He knows!
He knows about the eyes!
He'll take them away!
He'll gouge them out!
He'll send us back to that place!
We won't let him!
Send him there instead!
Gouge out his eyes instead!
Eat his heart!
Send him to hell!
No, bring it here!
Bring the city here!
Bring hell here!
We can do it with the eyes!
Bring him the gutters that ran with our blood!
The mists that burned our lungs!
The rain that seared our skin!
The mothers who didn't want us!
Who murdered us before we even got to live!
Bring him the river where they threw us away!
Show him how awful this world is!
Show him what he didn't protect!
We can do it with the eyes!
Ruby edged away from him, with her cookies well in hand of course, feeling scared and angry for reasons that she couldn't put into words. That happened a lot, but she knew how to deal with it. Yang taught her; she couldn't decide how to feel, but she could decide what to do with those feelings.
"What's wrong with that? My mom had silver eyes too, that's how genes work! Besides, they're pretty and they match my hair!"
See? Perfectly polite despite how much she didn't like him right now!
"Ahem!" Yang pretended to cough into her fist and glared.
Ruby blushed. Okay, maybe not perfectly polite, but still a lot more than her feelings wanted her to be.
"Sorry," she mumbled before cramming a whole cookie into her mouth so she didn't say any more stupid stuff.
Professor Goodwitch glared at her too, but she wasn't anywhere near as scary as Yang. It was hard to be intimidated by someone when you knew you could kill them and they couldn't do anything about it, so Ruby just ignored her. Ozpin chuckled.
"I didn't mean anything like that. I knew a woman with silver eyes once. She looked a lot like you." He took a sip from his mug while that statement sank into Ruby and Yang. "I thought that you might be related since you also have the same last name. Her name was Summer Rose."
Ruby heard Yang's breath hitch, but she was too stunned to pay attention. For the first time that she could remember since she was kidnapped, her feelings hushed, like something that had always been shouting deep inside her had suddenly stopped. A moment later, they came rushing back in a torrent that left her dizzy.
"You… knew my mom?" Ruby's voice was raspy and she could feel tears welling up inside.
"I did," Ozpin said gently. "She was one of my students at Beacon, and her team did some jobs for the school after they graduated. I was saddened to hear of her passing."
Ruby sniffed and Yang, for once, didn't have anything to say.
"I'm sorry," Ozpin said. "I didn't mean to bring up such a painful subject."
Ruby wiped her nose with her sleeve and mentally shook herself back to the here and now.
"No, it's okay. We were just surprised. Right, Yang?"
"Yeah." Yang shook her head in the same way that she always did after Ruby had gotten the drop on her. "Yeah, just surprised is all.
To Ruby's amazement, she felt like Professor Ozpin was probably telling the truth when he said he was sorry. Normally, she had a really hard time figuring out that kind of thing.
Even Professor Goodwitch looked sad underneath her hard face. Yang would probably say that was normal because she was a huntress. That meant that Professor Goodwitch probably still wanted to save people even if she didn't look like she did.
It's a lie!
She doesn't want to save anyone!
She wants to hurt mommy!
But Yang didn't know how awful the world really was. There were huntsmen and huntresses who didn't care about saving people, who just wanted money, or to fight, or even to hurt the people they should be protecting.
Ruby didn't think those kinds of people wanted to be teachers though. She would try to trust them, for now.
"Professor Ozpin," Goodwitch said. "If you don't mind, I think we should return to the matter at hand."
"Yes, I think you're right."
Ruby and Yang stiffened in their seats as he leaned over his desk and clasped his hands together.
"Miss Rose, you have handed me quite the dilemma. On the one hand, you have demonstrated extraordinary skill and expertise tonight. I can count the number of huntsmen and huntresses who could successfully infiltrate my office on one hand and still have fingers left over."
Ruby beamed at that.
"I'm sad to inform you that you are not one of them."
Ruby stopped beaming.
"We did manage to catch you on one of our security cameras, after all."
"You did
not," Ruby exclaimed indignantly and leaping to her feet.
Professor Ozpin pulled out a tablet and pressed it in a few different places, then turned it around and slid it across the desk for Ruby to look at. There, as plain as day, was a picture of herself in one of the ground floor corridors. It was blurry, but the cloak that the figure wore was unmistakably hers.
"To be fair," Professor Ozpin continued, not caring to give her any time to absorb this blow to her professional pride. "We have a lot of cameras at Beacon Academy, and you apparently only missed one of them. On top of that, we also didn't discover your intrusion until after you had already left my office. You are still easily one of the top ten infiltrators I have ever met, and i have met a lot of them."
Yang groaned and muttered, "Don't say that, she'll just get a big head."
Ruby folded her arms across her chest and flopped back down into her chair. She didn't have a big head!
"Yeah, well, I would have been number one if I'd used my Semblance," she grumbled. Despite her grumpiness, though, she couldn't quite suppress a little smile.
Yang snorted and professor Goodwitch notched up her glare. She really seemed to like glaring for some reason. Professor Ozpin just hummed and then kept on talking.
"On the other hand, you broke into a secure facility that holds a great deal of sensitive and even classified information, violating several laws in the process. Then you proceeded to, very publicly, advertise it for an entire new year to hear.
"You may have the physical skills to be an effective huntress, but you also demonstrated a frankly astonishing lack of good judgement and sense. Even if we set aside the crimes, I have to wonder if I should ever let you take the entrance exam, let alone take it early. You could be a great asset to any team, but you could also be an anchor that drags them to their deaths, and I will not allow such a student in my school.
"What do you have to say to that?"
"Hey! Yang jumped to her feet. "You can't just—"
"Miss Xiao Long," Professor Goodwitch snapped. "We have not thrown you out yet because it's clear that you didn't help or condone your sister's actions, but do not think for a second that that can't change if we decide that you are unfit for this academy. Miss Rose
will answer for her actions, whether you object or not!"
Yang looked like she was going to explode, and Ruby was right behind her. They couldn't treat her mo— sister like that! Professor Goodwitch was scowling even harder too, which didn't make any sense because she was the one who was being rude, but Professor Ozpin stopped all of them with an upraised hand and a firm look.
"Glynda, thank you, but I will take this."
He turned his unreadable gaze back to Ruby as she and Yang reluctantly sat back down.
"Miss Rose, Miss Xiao Long, it's clear that you care for each other deeply, and that's very admirable. But, Miss Xiao Long, huntresses shoulder the responsibility for the safety of everyone around them. If Ruby wants to become one, then she will have to demonstrate that she is able to handle that responsibility. Right here and now, that means answering for her mistakes, without your interference. If she can't stand on her own, then she is not fit for this job.
"Miss Rose, the same is true for you. Yang will protect the people of Remnant, but she can't do that if she is spending all of her time and effort trying to keep you out of trouble. If she can't focus on her mission without needing to worry about you, then she can't be a huntress, no matter how skilled she is."
Ruby watched as Yang's face shifted through a lot of different expressions that th— she couldn't read. Then she locked her eyes on her hands and the bundles of skirt clutched in a white knuckle grip when she realized that she didn't want to know what feeling Yang settled on. It would hurt no matter what.
Ruby knew that Professor Ozpin was right. She couldn't just keep relying on Yang to fix everything for her, but…
He wants to take Mommy away!
No! He can't have her!
He smells like secrets and lies!
Cut out his tongue before she believes him!
But he was wrong too. Yang was the only person who
got them, no matter how much she claimed she didn't. Dad and Uncle Qrow tried, but they just didn't. They kept expecting them to just
know things, like why it wasn't okay to hurt people sometimes but it was other times. Yang didn't do that though, she noticed when they didn't get it, and then explained it until they did.
They would make mistakes without her, big mistakes like tonight. Maybe even bigger ones, the kind of mistakes that would make them a bad person, that would make their family not want to be family anymore.
She'll throw us away!
She'll hate us!
"Okay," they said, voice just barely more than a whisper.
They felt Yang grow still even though they couldn't bring themselves to look away from their lap. They felt Professor Ozpin's gaze sharpen too, and even Professor Goodwitch felt like she was listening.
"Okay?" Ozpin questioned.
Droplets of water started falling onto the backs of their fists.
"Yang's always wanted to be a huntress, and we won't take that away from her. We won't give up on becoming one either, there's too many people that we need to protect. We
will be a huntress, no matter what. But…"
They squeezed their eyes shut as tight as they could.
"But we still don't understand what we did wrong. We'll do our best to learn, and we'll leave Yang alone too, but we… we need help. We'll do it w-without Y-yang, but we still need… need… We still need help."
They won't help!
They can't help!
They never help!
The silence was deafening. It felt like the mists from their dreams, the ones from that hellish city that their Noble Phantasm could only imitate. The mists that stole the whole world away, that choked their lungs so that they coughed and coughed and coughed until their throats tore open and they drowned in their blood, that turned the biggest, busiest city in the world into a lonely, silent hell. It felt like London.
"Well then," Professor Ozpin said at last. "I think that is enough for me to decide."
Ruby looked up, but they still couldn't see his face. It was too blurry.
"I will allow you to take the exam tomorrow."
They couldn't see the sharp movements that Yang and Professor Goodwitch made, but they did hear them.
"Professor," Goodwitch butted in. "Are you sure—"
"But," Ozpin said, cutting her off. "Even if you pass, you will not be allowed to serve on the same team as your sister. You can meet with her and take classes together at school, the same as any other students, but not in the field. You will need to learn how to work with your team on your own.
"You will also take extra classes tailored to your needs and undergo regular psychological evaluations. If you fail either of those, you will be expelled immediately.
"And finally, there is the matter of your punishment, which I will decide at a later time. We won't press charges, but you will have to make it up in other ways that will be both arduous and public. We can't have our other students coming to believe that they will just be rewarded for breaking the law."
Ruby wiped her tears away with her sleeve and gave him a watery smile, then said the only thing that she could think of.
"Thank you."
***
"Sir," Glynda exclaimed after the girls vacated the office. "You can't possibly think it's a good idea to let that girl into Beacon, she is severely mentally ill! She'll be a danger to herself and everyone around her!"
Professor Ozpin hummed in that frustratingly vague way of his. "All things considered, she's doing much better than I would expect from someone with her background."
"What background could excuse," Glynda gestured towards the door with The Disciplinarian. "All that?"
"Tell me, Glynda. Do you know anything about the series of murders in Vale about five years ago?"
"Of course I do, who doesn't?" She scoffed. "I don't see what that has to do with letting a girl like her into Beacon."
He took a sip from his mug. "Humor me, what do you know?"
"Several women were found dead and dismembered, displayed in egregiously macabre ways, over the course of two weeks," she said, condensing it all down in a way that only her years as a teacher allowed. There was simply too much to do justice to how bad it had been in a summary. Back then, every question that the media found the answer to just revealed new depths to the horror. It got so bad that they had to recall dozens of huntsmen and huntresses from the field to handle the extra Grimm that were being drawn towards the city.
"The media started calling the culprit Jack the Ripper, only finding out later that she was a prostitute named Maria who went insane after her child was killed by a Grimm.
"Over a dozen different children went missing at the same time. The authorities suspected it was the same person, but were only able to confirm it after one of the children she took tried to escape and managed to kill her in the struggle. That kid was the only surviv…"
Glynda felt a wave of dizziness when the implication hit her.
"Oh. Oh, that poor girl…"
"Indeed," Ozpin said placidly. "I saw the aftermath myself. That kind of experience would have shattered most adults, let alone a child, but she came out of it with an iron determination to protect the people around her. I honestly doubt if we, or anyone else, could convince her to give up on her resolve to become a huntress.
"More than that, should we? She has overcome so much already, do we have the right to doubt her ability to keep going?"
Glynda looked down at her feet, unable to keep from voicing her reservations.
"Even so… I don't think she's safe. There's something off about her, something wrong. Beyond what we just saw."
Ozpin just hummed at that.
