Pyrrha reacted the way Ruby had predicted, at least to start with. But that didn't last. Instead, her wide-eyed, slack jawed surprised turned into a rage that would've put minor Grimm to shame. Ruby flinched slightly. Pyrrha, normally so reserved and polite, looked… animalistic… inhuman, really. Even the way she held herself reflected this, shifting into an aggressive hunch, and holding her weight low to the ground, as if preparing to sprint.

"So… That's where you went. I'd been wondering why you'd abandoned us," Pyrrha growled.

Ruby cocked her head and opened her mouth to reply, but before she could there was an ear-splitting shriek and she was sent flying off her feet. Thinking quickly, she spun and landed well, skidding to a halt. Ruby spun towards where the explosion had originated, and placed her helmet back on her head before she had even regained her balance. Which may not have been the best idea, because she was disoriented enough that she nearly fell over.

There were two identical shuttles side by side. One was the shuttle she had flown in on, levitating slightly. The other was buried a few inches into the ground, and the door came flying off even as she watched, with a loud grating of metal on metal. It crashed loudly almost next to her. Agent Maine stepped through the brand new 'door', an unfamiliar A.I appearing over his shoulder.

Ruby felt a prickle of her aura, sensing danger, and immediately dropped. She was barely in time, and still hissed in pain as Pyrrha's knife buried itself in her upper back, slicing through the armour there like it was a particularly tough piece of paper. If she hadn't ducked, the blow would've severed her spine. Ruby cussed. Pyrrha was a hard opponent to fight, even when she was holding back.

Sure, Ruby had improved a bit, but nowhere close enough to guarantee a victory against the person who was likely the strongest Huntress in training in their year. She always had been a workaholic, but after Jaune had finally asked her out, her work ethic had somehow doubled. Frankly, Ruby didn't know where she found all the hours in the day.

Perhaps it hadn't worked out? Ruby really couldn't think of anything that would make Pyrrha so furious. The girl rarely ever broke into more than a slight frown.

A sharp stab of pain snapped Ruby from her musings. Right, knife currently in her shoulder. Pyrrha yanked it out and kicked Ruby in the back, sending her sprawling. Spinning back up to her feet, Ruby kicked aside a follow up blow, leaping back so she could steady herself. Of course, Pyrrha knew she'd try, and lunged right after her.

Ruby instinctively tried to put some distance between her and Pyrrha, trying to use a burst of her semblance, remembering too late that it still wasn't working. Staggering forward, she caught the next slash from Pyrrha on her already injured arm, rolling with the momentum, before diving for her rifle.

Grabbing the rifle just in time, she flung it up to point at Pyrrha, who had flicked her knife and was about to throw it. Aligning a shot, Ruby knocked it out of Pyrrha's hand. Much to her dismay, Pyrrha merely held out a hand behind her, and the knife flew back into it. Great, not only was Pyrrha's unstoppably amazing Semblance still working, she'd gotten better at it. Just as annoyingly, there was only a slight dent in the knife. What the fuck was that thing MADE of?

Although Ruby did make a mental note to be more careful. She wasn't entirely sure what her armour was made of, but her gun was metal. If Pyrrha managed to touch it… that would be all kinds of bad.

"You killed one our teammates… our friends. I will never forgive you," Pyrrha growled with absolute surety.

Ruby's eyes widened.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Pyrrha lunged forward, once again going for a fatal blow. She would've succeeded, too. If a car hadn't been flung through the air and crashed into her. Pyrrha yelped as she was flung an astounding by the force, out into the water. There was also a sickening snap, which caused Ruby to wince slightly.

Before Ruby could ponder if she was alright, she felt a spike of danger behind her, throwing herself out of the way of a mechanical arm. It seemed Pyrrha's buddies in the insurrection were annoyed at her. A moment later, she was astoundingly grateful that she had reacted fast enough. An explosively loud shattering noise and a burst of dust marked where the mechanical arm had shattered the pavement. The military grade, bulletproof pavement.

Which was… kind of scary, even if the arm itself didn't look particularly durable.

Feeling another stab of danger, Ruby threw herself to the ground, as Pyrrha's knife sailed over her head, rolling out of the way as Pyrrha jerked it suddenly downwards. Well, that answers that question. If she was well enough to use her semblance while out of sight, on top of predicting how Ruby would act, she'd be fine, broken bones or no.

In the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Carolina engage – and summarily start to beat the crap out of – the helmless member of the insurrection, who for some reason thought it was a good idea to show her face over protecting it from, say, bullets. She reminded her a lot of Yang. She even kind of looked like what Ruby imagined Yang's future child would look like.

Another stab of potential pain in her aura, and Ruby spun around, dodging a series of lightning fast blows from the cyborg guy. She really needed to think of better names for them. Girlie and Cyborg would do for now, she guessed. Still, Cyborg was deceptively fast, and given how strong he was that would've been a tad worrying, if Ruby wasn't as used to dodging astoundingly strong opponents as she was. After the Nevermore in her first year, she'd been keen to learn.

As fast as the man was, though, he had nothing on… pretty much every opponent she had ever fought in Remnant. She'd never really thought about that before. She used to consider Torchwick somewhat slow, but she'd seen him casually swat bullets out of the air. Compared to that kind of a baseline, this wasn't a concern. Ruby ducked one more blow and kicked Cyborg in the chest.

"Come here!" Cyborg growled, reaching out to grab her. Ruby retaliated by leaning to the side and punching him in the jaw, before letting out a shriek of pain. She'd punched with her injured arm, a mistake she doubted she would make again. Luckily, Cyborg was staggered enough that he couldn't capitalise on her weakness.

Ruby recovered first, and flicked her rifle up to his visor. As she pulled the trigger, Cyborg managed to knock her just enough that she was off target. A miniscule jerk came from the rifle in the form of recoil, and the bullet nearly removed the man's remaining arm from the elbow down. He bellowed in agony, crumpling to the ground.

Ruby stepped forward, pinning him to the ground under her foot, and took aim once more, only to be sent sprawling from a sweeping kick that knocked her legs from under her. Glad to see Cyborg was somewhat good at fighting, even though he wasn't very professional. Cussing about the pain of a bullet wound to the person who inflicted it, while trying to fight them? Yeah, she didn't hold much sympathy.

Although she did feel guilty that she didn't feel anything when she had tried to take his life. Was she already that desensitised to killing? I mean, sure, if it was him or her she'd choose her. But her complete apathy was still frightening.

Cyborg's partner, Girlie let out a noise of pain and surprise, flying through Ruby's vision and off the edge of the dock. Much to Ruby's amusement, she collided with Pyrrha, who had nearly finished climbing back into the fight. She wasn't amused Pyrrha was hurt, but the sheer number of variables that had to line up for that to happen made it fairly amusing.

Pyrrha's grunt told Ruby that she disagreed. Ruby felt a stab of concern as she remembered what Pyrrha had said, but dismissed it when Cyborg started moving again. A battlefield was no place to let things screw with your head. If her friends were all dead, there were much better places for her to come to terms with that. Besides, any soldier knew that people could be just as hurt with words as bullets. Well, somewhat close? Eh, words can hurt… somewhat. But it was still a common tactic.

Once again, Ruby was appalled at just how… jaded she'd become. She hadn't really noticed it happening. Still, she kicked Cyborg into a skid that sent him joining his teammates in the Ocean. Apparently, it was fairly effective at keeping people out of the fight. But she did kinda hope they lived, even if she wasn't sure why.

Damn, she was a terrible person. That she was even questioning why she didn't want another human being dead, let alone the fact that she was probably right to question them after the shit she'd done, spoke volumes of how fucked up her mental space had to be. Perhaps she should get therapy.

'If you need to talk to someone… I'm always here to listen.' Tau stated calmly, and Ruby stiffened in shock. Crap, she had completely forgotten about him. Speaking of, didn't her armour also block her aura? How the hell had she been using it? Ruby felt a stab of anger at the thought that she could've used it the whole time, but Tau's reply quickly put rest to that.

'Actually, that was me. I have combat prediction software and was transmitting it to you. You're probably familiar enough with your… 'Aura' that you didn't give it any thought.'

Ruby smiled one of the first sincere smiles she had in a while. Thank you, Tau. For the help, and… the other thing. I'll probably take you up on that.

'No problem, West.' Tau replied. Ruby could've sworn she heard him blushing. He probably still wasn't used to the whole 'talking' thing, although he was certainly doing a lot better than he had.

Ruby turned to survey the wreckage that had once been a battlefield. Craters and bullet holes covered the place, although only her, Carolina and Maine were still in sight. She briefly considered where the others had gone, but then decided she didn't care. They would be doing their jobs.

Carolina looked over at her and nodded. "Let's get moving," She stated calmly, her tone holding the kind of authority that couldn't be faked. "C.T and their leader will be holed up soon enough, best to get to them before that happens."

Ruby nodded silently, and Maine made no sign he'd heard. Ruby followed her as she led the way through a maze of corridors, towards the sound of gunfire, but Maine stayed behind, pacing the area. Lots and lots of gunfire came from ahead, which was odd, because Ruby was fairly sure that there was no way the insurrection would have that many soldiers and only send, like, six to deal with Carolina when she'd arrived.

Then again, she had been late to the party, so she could've missed some of it.

They turned a corner, and Ruby was greeted by the answer to her unasked questions. Cowered behind various pillars and a crate were the rest of her team, and what seemed like two solid lines of bullets spat out from each side of the crate. Machine guns; that made sense, as annoying as it was. Lying on the ground with… was that an axe? Buried in his chest was a guy in blue armour.

He looked familiar, but Ruby couldn't place his name.

Carolina activated her speed unit and dashed to the other side of the gunfire, and Ruby snickered. Show off. But two could play at that gave. Activating her camo and ignoring the pain in her arm, Ruby stepped slightly around the corner and hefted her rifle. There were two soldiers in bulky armour hefting massive guns that reminded her firmly of Coco's minigun.

Lining up a shot on the furthest target, Ruby tuned out the conversation behind her, steadying her breathing. A slight jerk in her arm later, one of the machine gunners was knocked down, bleeding blood and… yellow paint? From their visor. The second began turning to look for her, but before she could Ruby loosed another shot. This one was less accurate, hitting the gun rather than the person, but was still enough to completely shatter the weapon.

And then it was a single, unarmed opponent against five Freelancers, not including the downed blue guy. They didn't even make it a step before gunfire started piling onto them, although it seemed curiously ineffectual. Ruby shrugged and line up another shot, punching a hole through their chest.

The other Freelancers shot her looks, Wyoming even staring motionlessly at her rifle, but Ruby just shook her head. This was not the time, and luckily Carolina realised that.

"York, Wash, work on cutting the power. They may have defences set up Wyoming, get Florida back on his feet, West-" Carolina was cut off when a figure in black, Texas, ran past her. "Dammit!" She yelled, pursuing. This time, Ruby couldn't help but sigh.

"Man, she really wants to win," Washington whined.

"Yep, and it's not them she's fighting against," York said, sounding resigned.

'West?' Tau began in her head. 'Carolina could be seriously hurt, she's being really reckless.'

"I know," She replied aloud, before taking off after her 'leader'. The others all had orders, and would likely be punished if they broke them. But she didn't, and thus could focus on stopping their 'leader' from getting herself killed.

Time: 0917

Date: XX/XX/XXXX

Location: Insurrectionist Base, Escape Pod Bay

When Ruby finally caught up to Texas and Carolina, they were silently glaring at each other, crouched next to a closed door.

"York! How long until the power's cut?" Carolina whispered angrily. "I told you to get on that a few minutes ago!"

"Calm down, Carolina!" York's muffled reply came. "Power's off."

As soon as he finished saying that, the door slid open, and there was a slight flicker in the light as Ruby's helmet engaged night vision. All three of them spun through the door, and before them were C.T and a man wearing the colour scheme of the Insurrection, with a hatchet seeming to be his only weapon.

"We need to go!" C.T. practically cried to the man. Somehow, neither of them had noticed the three new occupants of the room.

"You're not going anywhere," Ruby said calmly.

C.T. spun around, and practically flinched when she saw them. "Carolina! And… you two." She practically growled that last part. Apparently she wasn't a big fan of them.

"C.T., you have something that belongs to project Freelancer. And you know how the Director hates to share," Texas stated calmly.

"You three are fools. The Director is playing you, don't you see it?"

Ruby sighed slightly. Bickering with C.T. was clearly to her advantage, as a defector she'd likely know all the Project's dirty little secrets, maybe even hers. Yet here were her two 'experienced' allies, trying to find non-lethal ways to accomplish their mission. After having likely killed pretty much everyone who they'd fought. Sure, Ruby was confident Pyrrha would survive the Ocean.

But that was because she was Pyrrha, and had Aura. The others were likely dead. C.T. had already shown she wasn't going to come in peacefully, yet Carolina still tried to convince her. So as much as she disliked it, she fired a shot into C.T's chest plate.

C.T. crumpled with a groan of pain, and the Insurrectionist dashed to her side, yelling 'No'. Carolina's hand landed heavily on Ruby's shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing?" Carolina demanded angrily. Ruby brushed her hand of, seeing the Insurrectionist try to carry C.T. away from them, towards a door that was no doubt an escape pod. Judging from the blood, C.T. was dead or dying, but the man would still have her armour. Ruby fired off a shot into his foot, which severed it completely. The man shrieked in pain and collapsed.

Ruby calmly turned to Carolina. "Completing our objective. We just need her armour."

"You killed a teammate!" She exclaimed, still furious.

"Not a teammate anymore, but that was her call, not mine. You didn't have any troubles killing others in the Insurrection, why should she be any different?" Ruby calmly replied, and Carolina flinched back.

"… I don't know what's gotten into you, West. But you'd better figure out the difference between your enemies… and your friends."

Ruby broke her gaze, feeling tears roll down her cheeks silently. Okay, that one kind of stung. There was no way Carolina could've known about Pyrrha, but still.

Of course, the traitorous part of her mind whispered back, This isn't the first time you've killed one of your friends, is it? You don't even know which one.

'Ruby! Lookout!' Tau said frantically, and Ruby snapped her eyes upwards, but was too slow to dodge the axe flying towards her. It bowled her over, sticking into her chest painfully, and Ruby began to feel a cold darkness start to welcome her. Oh, crap, that meant it was bad. She didn't feel any pain, either. Shit.

"York! Get down her ASAP, and bring prepare your healing unit!" Carolina barked over the radio, stepping over and kicking the man who had thrown it, knocking him unconscious. "West! West, stay with-"

Dun! Dun! DUUUUUNNN! Shameless 'cliffhanger'. Of course, as the story isn't marked finished, she obviously survives. Right...?

Anyway, onto more serious business. I'm sorry his took me so long to write. There are a bunch of reasons which all kind just built up so much that I'm like a bunch late. First off, I've been sick for TWO WHOLE WEEKS now, which is a pain, and I'm just starting to get better. Before that, I had tons of real life stuff to do, including but not even close to limited to the six other things I am currently writing.

I've even gotten ideas for a seventh... NO! BAD BRAIN! DOWN! Now sit... sit... Good Brain!

Anyways, on top of that I've also been depressed. And no, not in the suicidal or pain seeking way, in the way that leaves you with a chemical imbalance in the brain that basically causes you to have no motivation or energy. With how much I've been wanting to do lately, you can probably see why that's a problem.

The final problem is that my 't' and space bar keys are being REALLY finicky, so every time I check my work I need to go back and manually retype most of them because they didn't register. For someone who's already low on motivation, that delayed me more than anything. It is ASTOUNDINGLY frustration. Try it at home, randomly skip slightly more than half your spaces and t's, then after a few hundred words go back and fix it. Times thirty.

Anyway, thank you all for your support. It means a lot to me, and helps me to write faster, or otherwise improves my day. And sorry if his Author's Note is weirdly worded, I'm basically asleep as I'm writing this, because if I didn't the chapter would probably take another few days.

'Till next time!