Ch 55: Red Like Roses (2)

After spending 2 hours at 'From Dusk Till Dawn', to let Ruby satisfy her weapon fetish, the twins were walking back to Beacon. Well, Ray was walking. Ruby had decided she wanted to be spoiled a bit after having to share her brother with so many other people since their arrival at Beacon and had asked him to give her a piggyback ride to the airbus that would return them to Beacon Academy.

"So what about the other times?" Ruby asked, bringing their conversation back to the topic from their trip to the store that had gotten a bit derailed.

"Hmmm…" Ray didn't answer her for a while. This time Ruby didn't push and just rested her cheek against the back of his head.

"The last time you mentioned, when Yang started asking about her mother, and the time over the forest of Anima was because of Yang's mom, Raven. I know where she is and why she left." Ray eventually answered. Ruby froze and tightened her arms around his neck at the unexpected answer.

"Ease up a bit Ruby." Ray coughed out. Ruby quickly relaxed her grip and waited impatiently for him to explain.

"I had heard Dad and Uncle Qrow talking shortly after we were told Mom died. I learned a bit about why Raven had left Yang. One of the things I learned was that she was hiding out in the forests outside Mistral. So, when we went to Mistral for the 38th Vytal Festival, I made a point of slipping away to confront her." Ruby wanted to ask but was afraid to know the answer.

Sensing this, Ray shook his head, "Don't ask Ruby. It's complicated, and while I am still furious at her for abandoning Yang and putting her through so much pain and doubt, I'm not going to speak towards the right or wrong of what she did. Only Yang has the right to judge her for what she has done after they finally meet."

"I won't ask." Ruby nodded and hugged Ray tighter, being careful not to start choking him again but needing to feel his warmth and wanting to share her own with him after hearing the heavy news he had been carrying for so long.

Not enjoying the heavy atmosphere he had created, Ray made a snap decision that he had been hesitating over for a long time. Constantly weighing the guilt of keeping it versus the dangers of revealing it and the fear over how Ruby would react to learning he had kept it.

"Speaking of moms." Ray said as he adjusted his grip on Ruby's plush, toned thighs so that he could get his left arm under her and free his right arm. Once Ruby was settled comfortably on his left arm, Ray reached into his jacket to pull out his scroll while expanding his domain to look for anyone listening in on them. Ruby looked over his shoulder, curious and hopeful, thinking he had found some old pictures of their mom recently. Her curiosity turned to confusion as Ray went through several layers of security to access an OS behind his scroll's primary operating system that Ruby had never known he had. Her confusion deepened as he selected a number, no names, just numbers, from his contacts list and passed it up to her.

"Here. The reason for my smile from Vacuo." No further explanation. He just handed it to her and went back to holding her on his back by her soft thighs over her silky tights. Ruby held his scroll in her hands, not understanding what was going on, but in the depth of her heart, a nameless hope was growing as the call rang. A hope far too terrifying to acknowledge, but even so, it grew and caused her breathing to speed up and her chest to tighten.

*Click* The call connected.

"What's wrong, honey?" a tired woman's voice came through the speaker. A voice that had haunted Ruby's dreams ever since she was a little girl and brought tears to her eyes. The tears blurred her vision, and she couldn't get a good look at the woman who had stepped into view of the camera.

"...Ruby?" the woman's whisper sounded shaken like she was about to cry. Ruby blinked her eyes and reached up to rub them with the back of her hand, desperate to see the woman whose voice made it feel like her soul was shattering.

"...Mom..." Ruby finally croaked out. Her soft voice was breaking under the weight of her emotions as new tears pooled in her eyes to replace those she had just wiped away. But she had seen it. She had seen her face. Except for a few wrinkles on her face and longer hair that reached down to her shoulders, the woman's face was almost a mirror image of Ruby's. It was Ruby and Ray's mother, Summer Rose. A highly skilled elite Huntress that had been reported as missing and presumed dead on a mission almost ten years ago.

Summer's hands were covering her mouth in shock, tears streaming down her face as she stared wide-eyed back at her daughter. Her gaze trying to devour every bit of her child that she could see. Ruby was no better. No matter how much she blinked, the tears kept coming back to cloud her vision as she tried to see through them at the mother she had always dreamed about while her mouth kept muttering "mom… mother… mommy… mama..." under breath like a spell that would ensure this wasn't another dream. Hearing her daughter's desperate calls to her, Summer reached out with one of her hands to touch the camera, "I'm here. I'm here, my baby." she whispered, a warm motherly smile on her face, though a bit shaky from her own intense emotions.

That broke Ruby, "Mommy!" Ruby cried as she clenched the scroll to her chest and broke down crying. Her tears fell freely, soaking Ray's back. Throughout all of this, Ray had continued walking. His head bowed as he held back his own tears. He should never have agreed to keep this secret from her. Ruby's cries shattered his heart, and the dikes holding back his tears broke.

Without disturbing his bawling twin, Ray maneuvered her around from his back until he was holding her in a princess carry and cradling her tightly against him in his arms. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against his sister's as years of guilt, sadness, loss, and loneliness flowed out of both of them in their tears. From the scroll buried within Ruby's bosom, they could hear the sound of their mother crying with them. Even so, Ray continued to walk. He continued to scan for any threat. He continued to protect his family even as his heart, his soul, his everything, all he was, wept and quivered, overcome with emotions. He never should've agreed to keep this secret.

After their crying jag died down and the three of them regained enough control to wipe their eyes and talk coherently again, Ruby moved the scroll away from her chest so that she could see her mother again.

"Ray?" Summer asked her son as she wiped her eyes again, wondering why he had decided to tell Ruby. Ruby also looked up at her twin brother that was cradling her, as he continued to trudge along, wondering the same. Ray's smile was sad, in the end, after everything he had contemplated and weighed, all the complicated and carefully weighted decisions that had led to him agreeing to keep the secret that his mother was alive from even her husband and daughter for so long. It had all been broken by one simple fact.

"I'm tired of keeping this secret." He declared in a voice that was heavy with exhaustion but also sounded refreshed from finally having this burden lifted. [Fuck Ozpin! If he has a problem with this, let him come. Fuck Salem! If she wants to hurt us to get to Mom, let her come. Dad can take care of himself as long as he isn't distracted by trying to protect us. Ruby, Yang, and I are strong, and we are as safe as we can be at Beacon. I'm through with hurting my family by keeping this secret! You got a problem with that!? Bite me!] Ray's conviction firmed as his thoughts and desires crystalized. His twin sister and mother stared at him for a while, their gazes inscrutable.

Finally, Ruby spoke. "Why?" she asked, addressing both of them but looking at Ray, feeling that he had the answers she was looking for. Why was their mother alive? Why did Ray know? Why didn't Ray tell her? Why didn't her mother come home? Why didn't Dad know? Why? Why!? WHY!? On the other side of the screen, Summer opened her mouth but hesitated from answering her daughter's weighted question. Ray no longer had any such hesitation.

"We are at war, Ruby." He said solemnly. The serious look on his face did not allow her to find any trace of humor as Ruby searched his face in shock for any signs that he was joking, unable to believe what she had just heard. They were in a time of peace. Weren't they? She turned to look at her mother and found the same grim look on her face as she nodded in confirmation and looked through the screen at her son, asking him to continue. She wasn't prepared to tell her daughter yet. It hurt too much, and she was too afraid of how this would affect her precious baby girl. Her brother knew her better and would know how best to tell her, rather than an absentee mother. At the thought of all the time she had lost, Summer hung her head in guilt and shame. Ray looked at his mother in sympathy, wishing they were together in the same place so that he could give her a hug. However, they weren't, and he couldn't, so he tightened his arms around Ruby instead.

"A shadow war that stretches back to long before we were born. A war against a force that wants to use the Grimm to wipe out all life on Remnant, Human and Faunus alike." Ruby's mouth fell open in shock, and her eyes grew as wide as the moon above at the news, but Ray wasn't done.

His voice was as firm as his steps as he continued, "13 years ago, when we were two, Ozpin sent Mom on a secret mission to confront the leader of this force. She lost, and our enemy thought they had killed her, but Mom survived by using the force of their last blow to throw herself off a cliff and into the sea. After that, she somehow survived the ocean's and the Grimm within's efforts to finish her and made her way to Vacuo. She was in bad shape and was saved by a tribe of nomads who took her in. By the time she was well enough to travel again, Ozpin had found her. He told her that the enemy thought she was dead and that she should remain in hiding for our safety until the time was right. Mom, afraid that our enemy would take us hostage to use against her or just outright kill us to hurt her, agreed. For six years, she lived with that Vacuan tribe, no one knowing who she was or where she came from besides Ozpin. Then, six years ago, Dad took us to Vacuo for the 37th Vytal Festival, and I sensed her."

"That time, you ran away from us and vanished for a whole day." Ruby murmured, remembering the first time Ray had ditched them during a Vytal Festival. They had been walking together among the shops and displays when Ray had suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide and locked on something in the distance. Before their dad could do anything, Ray had bolted away from them in a crack of thunder. They had searched frantically for him throughout the entire day, only to find him sitting in their hotel room when they got back that evening. Ray had even had the nerve to ask with a straight face, "When's dinner? I'm starving!". Ruby didn't think she had ever seen her father so mad before or delivered Ray such a fierce spanking, but Ray had never told them why he had gone or where he had been.

Ruby narrowed her eyes at him as another thought struck her, "All those other times you ditched us at Vytal Festivals? It wasn't so that you could meet up with Mom on your own, was it?"

Ray shook his head, "No, those times I was making my own preparations for entering this war myself. That first time was the only time I have gotten to meet up with Mom in person, and that time she told me why she was in hiding and not to come to visit her again since it was too dangerous. I agreed. And now here we are with me breaking my promise."

"And now?" Ray understood Ruby's short question without her having to say more.

"Now? Now I know I can kill them!" Ray's bloodlust leaked out as he clenched his teeth, narrowed his eyes towards the horizon, and growled out the words from deep within his chest.