Ruby: The Path Ends

Chapter One

     Ruby's eyes opened as her body convulsed.

     "She's awake, turn it off." An unfamiliar voice said from somewhere nearby.  She felt like she'd just run a marathon then fell off a mountain. Her head was fuzzy and concentrating on anything was nearly impossible.

     "Are you sure this is safe?" Another person asked warily. "Shouldn't she be restrained?"

     "Shut the hell up and do your job." Snapped a very familiar voice.

     "Yang?" Ruby whispered. Her throat was dry and she sounded strange.

     "She's okay!!" Yang virtually shouted as she pulled Ruby into an impossibly tight hug.

     "Where am I?" She asked as she opened her eyes. "And why do you look... old?"

     "Hey!" Yang protested, though there was no real anger in her words and she was still smiling. "That's mean."

     It might have been mean but it was accurate. It was strange to see this person who looked a bit like her sister but more mature. She was still trying to figure out what might have happened when memories began to surface. "Professor Ozpin..."

     "It's 'Overlord Ozpin' now." A deep voice chimed in. She turned to the new person and blinked. It took her brain a moment to process both the information and the one who said it.

     "Dove?" He looked so different! Older, like Yang, but scarred as if he'd been in a lot of fights. His armor was different, too, heavier looking and in need of some repairs. "What's going on?"

     "You've been in a coma for nine years, Ruby." Yang said, still clinging tightly to her hand. "They hid you but we finally got you back!"

     "Yeah... He injected me with something... Didn't anyone notice something was wrong?" She asked, hurt. Nine years?

     "They said it was some kind of reaction to one of the new medications coupled with the shock you suffered that night." Dove said, shaking his head. "We visited often at first, hoping to figure out a way to bring you out of it."

     She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memories of Torchwick, of Cardin, of Ozpin...

     "Then things got bad. " Yang sighed. "Chaos broke out and you disappeared."

     "Why didn't he just kill me?" She asked. It would have been so easy and they had been trying before that night.

     "You killed Torchwick, one of those at the front of his operation." She looked up and gasped. It was Professor Goodwitch but she was barely herself. Stress and worry lines etched her face, her eyes glowed with dust enhancement and both of her arms seemed to be melded with robotic parts, there were weapons fused with her flesh. "If he killed you it would have made you a martyr and given people the boost they needed to fight. Instead you just quietly disappeared. You were used as a distraction while he moved forward faster. Somewhere along the way he got more ambitious, his plans changed and now he is in control of all the Kingdoms."

     "No one fought back?" Ruby asked incredulously.

     "Oh, many fought but he was clever and had a lot of connections. He used his position as Headmaster of Beacon to gather information on all past and present hunters, manipulating or killing as needed until the majority were loyal to him. He won the backing of the faunus and the most of them gladly killed humans wherever he said to. There were enough crooked people in the government that before too long he had them under his thumb as well."

     "Now he is the government. He controls the weapons, the dust, the police, the hunters, the food... even some of the Grimm." Dove scowled. "All 'true citizens' have implants that allow them to be tracked."