Chapter Text
Ruby swiped at the shadow with Crescent Rose, the figure fading into black smoke. She rushed away in a flurry of rose petals as she dove into the approaching group of similar shadows, swinging madly to give herself room. She flew up off of one of the shadows, her scythe transforming into its sniper form. She fired at the group, another shadow fading as she was launched away by the ricochet.
When she landed, shadowed creatures immediately circled around her. They were pure black and misty, like the Grimm but more…unnatural. They moved erratically as they circled around her, slowly closing the distance. Ruby could feel her heart rate increasing. Crescent Rose unfolded into scythe form again as she began swinging. She cut through two of the shadows and ducked through the new opening.
Through the darkness of the space around her, she could faintly make out a figure with glowing eyes. She sprinted toward it, slashing apart any shadows in her way. The glowing-eyed figure swung something at her, but Roby moved out of the way and slashed at it.
Only it wasn’t a shadow when she looked back.
It was him.
Oscar.
“No…no no no no no please no,” Ruby said, dropping Crescent Rose and falling to her knees. “Please…please not again…I can’t…” She felt tears stream down her cheeks. She looked up and saw more bodies, all of them similarly slashed and hacked up. Weiss. Blake. Yang. Her uncle Qrow. Team JNR. Her friends. All of them, just…dead.
And one figure stood above the rest of the bodies, smiling at Ruby with her ghastly red eyes and devilish smile.
“Well aren’t you something,” Salem said with that sickeningly maternal malice. “Perhaps you can serve me well after all, if you’re so willing to destroy those who seemed oh so close to you.”
“No…no I…I-I-I wouldn’t! You’re dead! I couldn’t…You did this! I’ll kill you!”
“Oh? Like you did to your friends? Your family? Poor little Oscar?” Ruby couldn’t stand, her knees failed her as she looked down at the boy under her. Her hands were red from the blood seeping through his clothes.
“Ruby…I…I'm...s-sorry,” Oscar croaked out before he went limp in her arms, his now lifeless eyes staring into her very soul.
No.
NO.
“NO!” Ruby screamed as she bolted upright in her bed. She felt sweat beading down from her forehead and her heart on fire. She looked around her too quickly to take anything in. She tried to slow down, but she just couldn’t. She heard a crash, and suddenly there was another person at her side.
“Ruby. Hey, Rubes, slow down. Look at me,” the voice said. Ruby turned to look, a large mane of yellow hair and deep purple eyes meeting her silver ones. She smiled at Ruby and gently hovered over her hand. “Can I?” she asked, to which Ruby quietly nodded. Yang took Ruby’s hand in hers and gently massaged it with her thumb. “It’s alright Ruby. I’m here for you. Deep breaths.”
Yang held out a finger and breathed in, long and deep, urging her sister to do the same. Ruby did so, breathing in, and when Yang put down her finger, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. They repeated this for as long as it took for Ruby to get a better grip on where they were.
They were home.
In Patch.
And…nobody was hurt.
“There you are,” Yang said kindly, brushing some hair away from Ruby’s face. “Seems like that was some nightmare Sis.”
“Yeah,” Ruby said weakly. Yang’s brow furrowed as she moved positions, sitting on the bed next to Ruby’s legs.
“Ruby…you know you can talk with me, right? I mean really talk to me. Something’s clearly gotten to you so bad you’re having night terrors.” Ruby sighed at Yang’s observation. Because…she was right. She couldn’t hide it from her. She shouldn’t hide it.
“I…I-I saw shadows, and I was fighting them. And then I attacked one and i-it was…i-it was Oscar. And then I saw you, a-and Weiss, and Blake, and Uncle Qrow, and our friends, and then Salem was there and then Oscar grabbed my hand and then-”
“Ruby.”
Ruby stopped, tears obscuring some of her vision as Yang pulled her into a hug. Ruby held onto her sister tightly, putting her in to a tighter hug. She could feel herself beginning to cry again as she did so. Yang was so warm and safe, so much unlike the coldness of her nightmare.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I’m here for you.”
“How pathetic is this, huh?” Ruby cynically commented. “19 years old and I’m crying like a little girl. I’m sorry for w-waking you up.” Yang pulled back and looked Ruby in the eyes hard .
“Listen here Rubes, you are not, and will never be, pathetic. We all have nightmares. We all cry. We all feel scared. You know that better than any of us do. And don’t feel bad, I’ll always be here for you. Just like you’ve always been here for me when I needed you.” She gave Ruby another hug before sitting up. “But that sounds like…a really bad nightmare.”
“Yeah.”
“You said…you had, umm, hurt Oscar.” Ruby sniffled at the comment. “Is there…something that happened? To make that stand out to you?” Ruby’s breath caught in her lungs. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not again. But…
“It was…in the Ever After. Before I…” she went quiet, not wanting to say it. Yang’s expression dropped as she caught on to what her sister was trying to say. “Neo…she made me think…s-she turned into…a-and then after he was on the ground, she made illusions of all of you.”
“Oh, Ruby.”
“I-I’m sorry. I…I c-can’t. It…it hurts to think about.”
“Then…how about we don’t. Not yet anyway,” Yang offered. Ruby looked up at her from where she’d been intensely staring at her clasped hands. “I don’t think either of us are ready to go back to bed, so how about we change the subject to…oh! That party, huh?”
“Huh?”
“You know, our big ‘anniversary for saving the world’ thing! Come on, the gang’s coming over and everything!” Yang had a big smile on her face as her arm went up to emphasize. “I’m still surprised Dad agreed to it though. That’s a lot of people.”
“You know he's over the moon, come on,” Ruby teased, lightly punching her sister’s arm. The two laughed at the idea, their dad weaving around everyone and making them feel at home as everyone’s crowded in the living room. “But…yeah, it’ll be nice. Feels like it’s been a while since we were together.
“I mean kinda? Everyone went back to visit their families for a bit, but it’s only been a month. Besides, it’s not like we don’t all work together anyway.” Ruby had to agree with that.
A lot had happened since Salem’s defeat one year ago.
Team RWBY and their friends had been extremely busy ever since, trying to get the kingdoms of Remnant to stay united and work together to rebuild. But without Ozpin or the relics being among them anymore, it was difficult to rally everyone.
But they were able to do it. Work still needed to be done, of course. Many of the citizens of Atlus that hadn’t settled in new kingdoms chose to reconstruct where they could. Last she had heard, it was going along alright, though a lot of that was due to the power of the maidens. And Beacon Academy’s construction had been going smoothly ever since their battle against Salem.
Jaune had gone back to visit his family, Ren and Nora had found an apartment in Vale to share, Blake had returned to her parents to further the new White Fang’s movement, Weiss and her family were helping to construct the new kingdom of Atlus, Qrow was currently crashing on the couch, and Oscar said he’d be in another apartment not far from Ren and Nora.
Ruby put her dream out of her mind for a while as she thought about him. She had offered to let him stay with her and Yang at their dad’s house while he looked for somewhere, but he insisted, saying he didn’t want to intrude as the family was getting back together again. Ruby understood, but was a little disappointed. She would’ve liked having Oscar as a roommate. They could stay up late playing games, or reading a book, or cuddling on the couch...
“Ohoho, what have we here?” Yang teased. Ruby spluttered, not realizing how her face had heated up. “Seems like someone’s in loooove~”
“Wha-No! No. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ruby deflected. However it did little to get Yang off her case.
“Oh really? So if I told you Oscar was coming early and Dad offered him a place to stay? He’s coming over tomorrow”
“W-w-what? Y-You mean Oscar’s g-gonna be…h-here? With us?” Ruby could feel her cheeks heating up more and more, face fighting her hood in color. Yang was cackling with laughter as Ruby reached behind her for a pillow. She threw it at Yang, who fell on the bed but continued laughing. “Yang, come on! Cut it out!”
“Alright alright, but come on Rubes, you have to admit it. I’m pretty sure all of us know you wanna smooch farm boy.” Ruby didn’t answer that. She was more occupied by the idea Yang had shoved in her brain. Oscar and her, under the stars, leaning against a railing, moving closer to one another- “Hello? Ruuuubyyyyyy. Get outta dreamland.” Ruby shook off the idea and pouted.
“Yang come on, I don’t like Oscar. W-Well I do, b-b-but as a friend! Just platonic friends! And he just so happens to be kind of cute and really smart and dammit Yang STOP LAUGHING AT ME!”
“Ruby Rose, my dear sister, tell him. Please. It’s actually kind of sad how much you two have been pining after one another.”
“I swear to gods if that was a pun then you can leave.”
“I’m serious Ruby, I think it would do you both good if you were honest about how you feel. Maybe it’ll help with some…other things.” Yang turned her head down at that. “You know, your nightmares.” Ruby didn’t know how to react. Would it help? Sure she wasn’t keen on telling people about her feelings, even if they were insistent on it. And it wasn’t like her feelings she had were related. Then again, it wasn’t like she told him everything they saw.
“I’ll…think about it. Thanks Yang. Maybe…maybe it will help.” yang smiled at her before looking at the door.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“I’ll be alright. Promise,” Ruby said with as earnest a smile as she could muster. Yang smiled back and gave Ruby one last hug before she went back to bed. “Goodnight Yang. Love you.”
“Love you too Sis,” Yang said as she returned to her own room down the hall. Ruby let out a sigh of relief and allowed her smile to fall. She flopped down onto her pillow and pulled up her scroll. It was a little after midnight, she doubted anyone was awake, but…
Ruby pulled up her messages and tapped on Oscar’s. They two had been chatting just that day about a video game they wanted to play together the next time they met, which was apparently tomorrow. ‘Dang it Oscar, why couldn’t you have said anything earlier,’ she thought. She sent him a quick text.
RR: See you tomorrow :)
Ruby put her scroll down and returned to sleep, trying to put her nightmare out of her mind. She hadn’t told Yang that wasn’t the first. Or that they’d been getting worse. But…that could wait.
She had other things she could focus on before then.