Eyes burning, and fierce breathing, Ruby barely even looked recognisable. Flames from her optical sensors were spreading across her entire face, stopping just above her top lip, creating a mask of white fire. A glowing golden ball where her eyes should have been emitted an eerie light from the fire mask. Her teeth were bare, and her hair was waving like the young girl had been placed on top of a fan, blasting out in all directions. She was angry. That in itself was something that took a lot to achieve. She could normally keep herself calm and collected in situations like this, but for her to become this purely angry...

She looked like a monster.

Weiss and Yang could only look at their team leader with wide eyes, jaws dropped, and utter disbelief in what the hell they were looking at right now. Weiss's brain was running at about a thousand miles an hour, while Yang's refused to even work, not able to comprehend what was happening to her sister. Had Blake been able to speak in this situation, she wouldn't have been capable of doing so out of her own surprise. None of them knew what to think. What could they think? This was...

This was unheard of. A third Trait? That wasn't possible, it didn't exist! Tests had been run, during the experimental era of Traits, when there was an obsession over Humanity's next evolutionary mark, and a thousand times over, again and again, and each one had come back with the exact same results - It simply wasn't possible. Every test that theory and simulation suggested that if a Human could develop a third Trait, their body wouldn't be able to handle the strain. It would tear the body apart because it contained far too much destructive power! It would drive them insane, even if their body didn't rip itself inside out!

Ruby was already an exceptionally rare case. A dual Trait only occurred in about one and a half percent of the world's population. A recessive gene in the body that mutated to become dominant, and could only overpower genes that were dominant themselves, and then return to its recessive state, it was a gene that required insane luck, incredibly specific circumstances, and more pure luck. It simply couldn't be replicated. One in about ten thousand people had a chance to even gain the mutation! The actual chance to develop the second ability was even lower.

But a third power was, even theoretically, totally impossible.

This simply wasn't possible.

And yet here it was.

Even the Primal enemies that they were facing were totally blown away by this revelation. Any smug grins or self-confident posturing that was going on was totally abandoned in place of shock and surprise that mirrored Team RWBY's almost exactly. This wasn't what was on their agenda. They hadn't planned for this. No one could have planned for this.

"You're freakin' kidding me." The Primal identified as Niiro commented, his sharpened teeth gritted and shown. "She's one of those freaking things?!"

It was impossible to figure out what was meant by that, but Weiss' brain refused to stop attempting to, although it came up completely blank. There just wasn't a way that she was able to justify or even theorise. A Human with multiple powers like this just didn't have any sort of explanation.

Did Ruby even know what she was doing? Had she been aware of whatever was happening to her from the start? For years? Had she hidden this?

Was she even aware of what was happening to her right now?

Ruby was undoubtedly Human. So what was going on?

For what felt like the longest second in all of existence, nothing moved. No one breathed, no one even dared to flinch for the intensity of the situation. Unsure of what should happen, there wasn't a single person who was willing to make the first move.

Suddenly, Ruby attacked.

Utilising the speed that her Kinetic Speed Trait gave her, she charged forward, leaving a trail of fire behind her as she darted towards her targets with unparalleled speed and manoeuvrability. She was far faster than she had been before though, far faster than she had ever been, even on her best of days. Her movement too was far more sporadic and confusing than she ever was on her best days. She was in front of the Primal group, then to the side, then above, and then behind, in front again and in the middle of them, leaping from location to location like she was using Teleportation, except she was building up more and more speed with each jump, building up more Kinetic energy than her Trait did to activate.

It made her impossible to track. The only thing that could be followed was the white lines of flame she left in her midst, leaving a trail of where she had been, and was moving with such haste, it was impossible for the naked eye to even begin to follow her. She was little more than a white trail, and a red blur, speeding and criss-crossing previous locations all around the confused Primal group, who couldn't do anything to stop it from happening.

"Fleisch!" One of the Primals yelled, calling for their Meat Grinder user to do something, since he presumably had the best chance to cause Ruby some damage, or at the least slow her down with their power.

Said Primal moved instantly, using the meat shield he had made of Blake and his own flesh as thick as he could, and manipulated it around his comrades like a semi-dome before Ruby could make any attempts to strike them directly. He protected their front, in an effort to defend them from any potential attacks from what was left of Team RWBY while they were distracted, not that they needed to bother. At this point, he was acting out of reflex, his battle training speaking for him instead of any rapidly required aid, or anything else that someone else might have considered to be a higher priority.

It never quite got past the semi-dome, however. As the protective layer was being formed, without explanation, a huge giant hole appeared, taking a large chunk of flesh with it. It defied any rational logic that Fleisch knew when it came to his powers. He sure knew he hadn't commanded such an action to take place.

A second later, Ruby reappeared, Blake in tow, by the remainder of her team. Blake was struggling to gather any breath whatsoever, but she was, relatively speaking, okay aside from this, there was none of the orange gelation-like flesh on her body, nor was there any on Ruby's. Despite having charged right through a huge chunk of the stuff, Ruby had moved so quickly, it hadn't been able to react, or even stick to her person naturally, like a glue. Ruby's speed was just too great. Any that had managed to stay onto them had been blown off by the wind resistance barely a second afterwards, leaving both of them totally free.

"Blake!" Reacting despite her injuries, Yang moved over to Blake, pulling her closer towards the group and away from Ruby, who was on the warpath at this point. She'd never seen her sister take such an aggressive stance in all her life. Blake needed treatment before she could focus on the state of her sister.

Not that any was needed. Whatever Meat Grinder was as a power, it didn't seem to injure the people that were added to the mass of meat, unless it was specifically willed. Healthy flesh seemed to be better for the gelatinous monster wave of manipulated meat, while battered and bruised seemed to be less effective. Using a totally unharmed Blake as a meat shield made more sense than beating her bloody and then adding her.

That was the only explanation that made sense as to why Blake, aside from her shock and lack of oxygen, seemed to be totally fine. She managed to take a few gulps of oxygen, using Yang as a support while she did so.

"Stay back." Ruby's voice had dropped an octave or three, and she didn't even sound close to her normally peppy and energetic voice. Instead, she sounded far, far darker, like she was filled with murderous intent.

Was she acting on instinct?

"Ruby, what are you -" Before Weiss' question could even leave her mouth, a huge gust of wind bellowed back towards the team as Ruby used her speed to charge forward again, this time, without any restraint.

Blake wasn't in the line of fire anymore. Ruby had acted in such a way that she would be able to free Blake from being their living shield, so now, the Primals had no leverage whatsoever. There wasn't anything they could do to stop Ruby and the rest of her team from unleashing barrage after barrage against them.

Not that they even needed to.

Fleisch moved the fastest, trying to attack using his flesh to stop Ruby dead in her tracks. The meat began to move, only spiking up lightly from the floor, before it was abruptly stopped. As Ruby had charged forward, she had grabbed hold of the Meat Grinder Primal, and tackled him in the chest, knocking the air right out of him, and sending him flying back a distance of twenty meters, making him slam right back into the warehouse where Ruby and Blake had first encountered him.

Next, Ruby's newfound power, whatever it was, activated. From her flaming eyes, a huge beam of white light suddenly erupted like a huge laser beam, obliterating absolutely anything that she looked at while it was in use. One second, the warehouse was there.

The next, it had been blown into utter oblivion. The entire building suddenly ignited into a massive explosion, raining down shards of metal and debris for a huge radius around it, enough to totally encapsulate Team RWBY and the Primals both in the small scraps that were left.

The young girl didn't hesitate for a second though, making her next move before the explosion had even finished. She Teleported right behind the Primal's, and used her power once again, aiming directly for the centre of them all, blasting them all totally in different directions, where she began to pick them off one by one.

One of them, she just used a combination of Teleporting above them, and then using Kinetic Speed downward, slamming them into the ground to knock them cold out of the fight immediately. This one, none of Team RWBY even knew the name of, but it was clear that he was out for the count.

The one that used Sharp as an ability, Niiro, prepared to use the power to wound Ruby and cut her down from her rampage, but he never even got the chance. As he was being blasted away and prepared himself, Ruby appeared behind him, and activated whatever her optical powers were, blasting him in the spine and into the floor that for a second, he thought he was dead.

Ruby kept changing targets, beating down the ones that were remaining standing, or in this case falling, and making sure that they didn't get back up. Her ruthlessness was making her totally unrecognisable, merciless and totally different to what she really was, who she really was. Each strike was precise and deadly, every movement was efficient and calculating.

Was she acting on instinct, or was she aware that she was doing this?

Her team could only watch her go, taking on every one of their enemies like she was an overpowered one woman army, utterly crushing anything that even tried to remain on its feet when she was around. Truthfully, it was actually terrifying just how much power Ruby was showing off. She was acting and using her powers, even her default Traits, not even including whatever the hell else she had mixed in with her, to absolutely devastating effects. Yang couldn't dish out this sort of damage even if she was continuously setting every single part of her body on fire, how Ruby was managing to do this was totally beyond the team's ability to comprehend.

"That... That is Ruby, right?..." Yang questioned, unable to even recognise her own sister. This ability to cause destruction was... Frankly, it was immense. It topped even Yang's ability. She'd never seen this before, even when Ruby became infuriated. She never was this brutal.

"You mean, you don't know what this is?" Weiss questioned, while she was helping tend to Blake.

"How the hell would I have known that Ruby was capable of that?!" Snapped the Explosive Impact Trait user, her eyes flashing red for a brief moment before she considered, what else could Weiss assume? Ruby was supposed to be her sister, so of course it made sense for her to assume that Yang knew something about the situation. "I've never seen this before... I was shocked enough when her Dual Trait activated. I didn't think she had... This..." She made an odd gesture with her right hand, unsure of what it was that she was trying to convey herself. "Whatever... That is."

Interrupted by Blake suddenly coughing loudly as her lungs refilled themselves, the blonde and white haired girls quickly shifted their focus away from Ruby and onto their struggling teammate.

"Easy, Blake." Instructed Yang, allowing her partner to use her as some sort of leaning post. It became quickly apparent that having been cut off from the ability to inhale, combined with what must have been one short but intense fight inside what used to be the storage warehouse had left the Faunus girl totally dehydrated and her throat dry, unable to form any words due to such parch. "Weiss, water."

Abiding by Yang's request, the Schnee heiress quickly reached for the canteen she had been keeping hold of and handed it to Blake, who drunk her entire way through what was left of the water inside like a suffering destructive alcoholic would a bottle of vodka.

After letting out a huge breath of air, and inhaled a few more times, Blake managed to find her voice. Though it was a bit more shaky than normal. "Hah... Thanks. That Primal... He got me with his power at range. Turns out, he only needs to get a small... Small amount of flesh on you. He only... He got maybe a thumbs worth of meat on me."

"And I thought you were good at stealth."

"Don't be cute, Yang. These guy are tough, and they've got equipment that worries me."

"I don't think they're going to be much of a problem in a few minutes." Weiss reminded Yang, and informed Blake, pointing a single finger towards the devastation that Ruby was causing at will.

Though Blake had managed to see the activation of whatever it was that was making Ruby's eyes glow like flames, she hadn't yet had the opportunity to look at just how much power their team leader was now displaying. Fire and ice, explosions and craters littered the place, and Ruby was still darting around like a rubber ball thrown past terminal velocity.

"What the?..."

"As far as I've been able to tell, she's using some kind of optical ability, and that its effects seem to be varying depending in the targets that she's using them on." Weiss explained, her thinking made clear. "I... I don't know how she's doing it. It doesn't make any sense."

As she finished speaking, Ruby had finished pounding the last Primal that she saw into a crater of ice from where Weiss had frozen the lake. The more traditional combination of Teleportation and Kinetic Speed had done the trick against that particular target, finishing him off with a nice clean strike down.

Her eyes still burned though, like the sun. Her anger was still as clear as day, and whatever was flowing through her body, be it power, adrenaline, or otherwise, it was still going strong, throughout every single vein that she possessed.

And all of a sudden, it just stopped.

Ruby's eyes suddenly went out, and every shred of anger that she seemed to possess just dulled out, her silver eyes returning to normal, exhaustion clear in the girls eyes, like all the energy had just been drained from her completely. All structure just collapsed, and she seemed to have issues with breathing, taking long, deep breaths, though not regaining any oxygen.

Now that she thought about it... Weiss couldn't feel her Trait activating, even though she was trying to create water for Blake. She normally felt a small amount of pressure as she used the power, a bit like a muscle in her mind. Though she was doing the actions and movements needed to activate her Trait, she didn't feel the muscle feedback response.

Now that she looked, her Trait wasn't activating. At all.

No flame, no ice, no water. No nothing. It simple wasn't activating whatsoever. Like it wasn't even there.

"Hah. Not so tough without your powers, are you?"

The same voice from before, it was revealed to be the Meat Grinder power holder, Fleisch. Somehow, he'd survived the brutal detonation that Ruby had caused the warehouse to go up in. His left arm seemed scorched, so Weiss guessed that he'd used his own flesh as a protective layer to withstand the blast from Ruby's optical powers. If he was able to withstand them, then it hinted that, aside from their visual brilliance, and how much of a shock it was, something amazing.

Her newfound abilities weren't as strong as they appeared to be. The explosion that the attack caused... Sure it looked deadly... But if the Primal could survive it, then it was weaker than expected. Far weaker.

Within the same scorched hand that the Primal had, the cold metallic sheen of steel shone in the moonlight. Some sort of contraption, about the same size as a baseball was being clutched like the Meat Grinder user was clinging onto it for dear life. His face though, suggested otherwise. His teeth were showing as he grinned, and his vast array of muscles twitched and tensed, like he was ready to attack.

It was so apparent that Ruby was running with absolutely no energy, that the Primal barely even seemed like he was expecting a fight of any description. He just took a few tentative steps closer towards Ruby and made a fist with his right hand. Ruby attempted to make some sort of face-defending block stance with her arms, each of them limp and barely even capable of making a fist. She could barely even stand up, never mind carry on the fight!

"Ruby, Teleport!" Her older sister yelled at command, warning her sister to get away from the Primal, seeing she was clearly in no state to keep up fighting. "Get away from him!"

She wouldn't move though. She didn't have the strength. It was taking everything that Ruby had to just stay upright. At this point, the Primal was about five meters away from Ruby, and his intentions were clear.

Growling, Yang placed Blake down as gently as possible while still maintaining a rapid speed. Since Ruby wasn't able to defend herself, Yang threw her hands behind her, and began to activate her explosive powers, planning on using the momentum from them to propel her forward to Ruby's defence.

But her powers refused to activate.

"What the hell?!" Yang tried, again and again to activate her powers, but each time, she was denied access to her own abilities.

At the same time, Fleisch now stood directly opposite Ruby. The totally exhausted girl threw a sorry excuse of a punch towards him, trying to hit him in some small way. It was a last ditch attempt to inflict some damage, not that it did a shred of good. Instead, the Primal simply moved his head to the side.

And then landed a devastating blow to Ruby's chest.

Primal strength was different to Humans. Primal's traded in half of their powers strength for physical prowess, but this physical ability wasn't a power itself. It was totally natural.

Blake knew what that meant - With the Nullifier, Primals had a huge advantage.

"Ruby!" Weiss acted instinctively, throwing up her left arm to fire a burst of flames towards her attacker.

But it didn't do anything.

"That won't work..." From her position, Blake attempted to inform her team of the device that their enemy was holding onto. "That Primal has a Nullifier."

"What's that supposed to be?"

"It's a device the White Fang developed... It... It cancels out powers."

"It does what?!" Yang seemed to react with the most shock to the revelation. Weiss had figured it out, but had attempted to activate her own power anyway.

"The Nullifier... It works by releasing a bandwidth that attacks certain receptors in the brain. The same ones that cause our powers to activate at will... When the bandwidth hits your brain, the receptors shut down, and you can't use your powers." Explained the Faunus girl as briefly as she could. "It has a radius of a hundred meters... They're powerful devices. And a Primal has physical strength even without their powers... So that gives them a huge advantage against Humans."

The sickening sound of kick based gut-strike, followed by Ruby essentially vomiting due to the sheer impact of the attack, filled the otherwise cold and silent air. Each strike brutally hit the young girl like a brick. And there wasn't anything that the team could do to stop it from happening.

Blake was injured. No physical damage, but she wasn't going to be able to leap into combat, so she wasn't moving, as was Yang. Even if Yang had her Trait, her arm injury was going to cause her a huge level of personal damage. That wouldn't have stopped her, but she didn't have a whole lot she could do without them.

Without their powers, they didn't have anything that they could do. Nothing realistic, anyway.

Nothing that they could honestly expect to achieve without their powers.

But Weiss charged anyway. And Yang followed exactly a quarter of a second later.

Both of them were fully aware of the fact this was probably do nothing but cause them to lose, and probably either get them crippled, or get them killed, but there wasn't any registration needed for the two of them. Had Blake been able to move, there wouldn't have been any on hers either. But she had provided Yang with her utility belt, filled up with all sorts of useful items that didn't require superpowers.

Team RWBY stuck together, and they weren't about to just let Ruby keep taking these beatings, no matter what the hell she had done, or even if they were freaked out by the utter obliteration she had caused. Ruby was their team leader, their friend.

She was family, even excluding Yang and hers blood ties.

Weiss took the right flank, moving as fast as she could possibly move, her shorter stature translated to her not being the fastest member of their team without powers, but she was sprinting like a champion in that moment. Yang took the left, reaching into the utility belt given by Blake, and produced a small capsule, black in its colouring. A smoke pellet, filled to the brim with the ingredients needed to cause a huge smokescreen filled the contents of the tiny pellet, and all that needed to be done was for the capsule to be broken to cause the dark cloud of smoke to cover them.

With precise aim, The powerless Explosive Impact Trait user lobbed the pellet towards the Primal, and upon mere contact with him, the capsule cracked, and out from it poured and the expelled all the chemicals that it had stored in there, creating a humungous burst of smoke. When Blake designed or requested something, she made sure it was optimal for operations, just like this pellet.

Following her throw, Yang charged right into the cloud of smoke, yelling at the top of her lungs, and poised to strike with every single muscle that she had in her body. Once she entered, the sounds and grunts of combat became all too loud and clear.

Weiss followed suit shortly after, leaping towards the unseen battle, with every intention of doing whatever she could do to help Ruby. She still had to have her talk with Ruby, so her friend didn't have permission to lose this fight! There still were things that needed to be said.

As the Thermo Trait user approached the smoke, she suddenly found the smoke dissipating, blasted away by the way of hand. Pushing it aside like it were annoying regular smoke, the Primal revealed that, between him and .yang, he had easily defeated her, and now stood with her head underneath his boot, and Yang, without her powers, wasn't able to do a single thing about it. The difference in physical power between Humans and Primals was just outstanding.

Without the ability to move in the middle of the air, Weiss wasn't able to do a thing to change her course, to get away, to slow herself down, or do anything else. The only thing that she could do was keep moving forward due to momentum.

Landing her neck perfectly in the Primals death grip. As soon as her skin made contact with his, he began to crush down with hand hands with every intention of crushing the young woman's windpipe, and eventually her entire neck.

He was doing the exact same with Ruby in his other hand, but was taking his time with her, probably out of a petty desire for revenge for blowing him up in that warehouse. This Primal, Fleisch, had just taken on three of the four members of Team RWBY at once, and he was winning.

"Wonder how long it'll take me to break someone's neck with just my hand." He pondered, clearly proud of himself. "You two, you care to help me find out how long?"

"Get... Off her." Despite the pain and her windpipe being crushed, Ruby still managed to find a way to speak, even if it had been reduced to little more than a whisper. It was totally amazing that she was even still awake after everything that had happened.

But there was no fire left. She was trying, she was doing her very best to sound threatening, to prove that she wasn't going to allow Weiss to get hurt, but her body just refused.

She was done.

"I'd say, 'Make me', but without your powers, you Humans aren't too good at much, are you?" Taunted Fleisch, his grip on Ruby's throat now poised and pushing down enough that Ruby was totally unable to speak at all now, "And yet we ended up more screwed over than the Faunus. Seems a bit backwards, doesn't it?

Between the two of them, Weiss had the most energy left, and was still struggling to get out of the grip hold and do something to help her comrades, not that much good was coming of it. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Blake forcing herself to her feet, preparing a charge of her own.

Suicide.

"Some Heroes you are." The Primal grinned, making one final taunt as he prepared to finish off the girls.

Everything that happened next was a blur to Weiss, but from what she was able to see, a red mass suddenly shot out of absolutely nowhere, and, with a liquid-like form, moved and obviously was being manipulated, sharpened its edges, and slicked the hands off the Primal attacker. Surprisingly, Fleisch didn't even seem to feel pain, or much of anything for that matter, other than shock. Upon the cut, there wasn't any blood, but more rather an orange liquid like substance that his body was apparently made out of by default. With the Nullifier still activate, he wasn't able to manipulate his own powers.

So he dropped Ruby and Weiss onto the floor, and staggered away from Yang. Ruby fell straight to the floor, unconscious, while Weiss and Yang needed just a moment to regain their breaths. Returning the favour given to her barely a few moments ago, Blake ran up to help her teammates out of the horrible situation they found themselves in.

Meanwhile, a fresh barrage of assaults slammed into the Primal's sides, the red liquid smacking each point that would constitute a weak point on a target that was made up of gelatine-like flesh. Whoever was using that liquid was without the range of the Nullifier, which made what they were doing far more impressive.

"You know the downside to a device like that, right?" A voice, though far away, was heard very clearly at the end of the liquid line, almost like it was being yelled down it. "If someone stays out of it's bandwidth, it's a useless scrap of metal. My powers give me range, so your little trick of shutting down my brains power receptors isn't gonna go well for you."

"No way..." Yang muttered to herself as Blake helped her up. She recognised the voice...

It wasn't a difficult observation to make, but the liquid that was being manipulated by whoever their saviour was not regular water. It wasn't any sort of water at all, but rather, a more personal fluid.

It was blood. Whomever was defending them right now had the ability to manipulate their blood and use it as a weapon. Unhygienic as that power had to be though, it was certainly helping out the young team, and it was incredibly powerful, there couldn't be any question about that. With a range of over a hundred meters, this Trait had some serious versatility, and it was just what Team RWBY needed right now to give them an edge over the Nullifiers.

A power outside the radius could still work, and be used inside the radius. Like Teleporting from outside the radius onto the inside. That was a good loophole to be aware of.

And it seemed like Fliesch was aware of this loophole himself, but hadn't expected that the group had been so fortunate enough as to have a Hero to show up who understood how Nullifiers worked. Had they been there the entire time, or had they just been attracted by the huge explosion Ruby had set off?

Either way, the Nullifier was worthless now. If this Hero had a power that could bypass the rules of the Nullifier, and Fliesch didn't have his own ready for use, then he was the one at the disadvantage again. Humans always held the higher group as long as they had their superpowers, and that wasn't a fight that he thought he could win if he seriously attempted to.

That meant that the Nullifier was holding him back.

So he reached for his belt where he had been keeping it, and crushed it within his palms, resorting everyone with their powers once again. Weiss and Yang found their powers activating automatically, catching the Schnee heiress of fire, and causing Yang to cause some detonations in her palms.

Of course the Primal was fully aware that doing this put him at a disadvantage - If he intended to fight.

Something he had no intention of doing.

Before Yang or Weiss could even begin to think about using their powers to beat down their enemy, he activated his own power, shooting off wads of flesh in multiple directions, each one of them targeting one of his fallen comrades a piece, some of them unconscious, some of them completely aware of what was going on, but made no effort to stop their ally from doing what it was that he was doing.

With near lightning speed, the manipulated blood charged right towards the Primal.

And stopped, just an inch before it pierced a wall made of living Primal flesh.

"What's wrong?" Fleisch questioned with a grin. His move had been cold and calculating, something he and his Primal allies knew they had to be if they wanted to have even the slightest chance of being victorious in this confrontation. "I'm pretty weak. Nullifiers take a bit of time to return our powers to full, especially if we're in close range to them. You could easily take me down, if you cut through these meatbags right here."

The move had been so very carefully thought out, even if it had been just a split second. Taking Team RWBY seemed like a logical choice, but Fleisch refused to do so. Kidnapping one of them would only cause the others to give chase, and he wasn't convinced he could take all of them on if they had their powers. In fact, it wasn't a question - He knew he couldn't take the all on if they had their powers. One on one, maybe two on one, and he might have considered it.

Even if he's captured all of them, he had no doubt their resistance to his powers would be extremely high, and that eye powered girl was probably more trouble than she was worth. And even if those weren't factors, the Hero that was no doubt around the area locally was going to hunt him down and take him out the second he deactivated his Primality. Taking Team RWBY would only lead to backlashes.

They were injured, and the eye powered girl clearly needed medical attention. They would work as a distraction. If he used his own allies as meat shields, then the Hero had no reason to follow him, if he wanted to save the girl. Plus, it added on yet another benefit.

It allow him to get his comrades out of the area with minimal effort, maximum defence against the Hero, and they wouldn't lose a single member.

Frankly, from a strategic stance, it was perfect.

And the Hero was hesitating to tear through his allies, just as predicted. "Go on! Take me down! All you have to do is kill a few Primals and you've got us all as your prisoners!"

The blood didn't move at all, instead just hovering there, fined to a point, like it was ready to stab, but wouldn't actually go through with the stabbing. The person at the end of this bloodline, they didn't want to kill anyone. This Hero probably felt a certain level of duty that they had to uphold. Perhaps they were ethically motivated to be acting as a Hero. Or perhaps they just didn't want to bloody their own hands.

Whatever the reason, Fleisch had the perfect escape cover. To protect himself from behind, he risked thinning out his forward defences, and created a dome around his person, one he could still see out of through an opaque section of none-chunky flesh, but he was now defended from all angles. "Some Hero you are."

He began to take steps away from the current location. Small steps to make sure that nothing wasn't being overlooked. Careful, careful movement. It wasn't until ten minutes had passed that he risked letting his powers down.

The Hero and the girls had been gone for about Nine minutes and thirty seconds at that point.

Multiple powers was a prospect that, once explained to the staff, was something that required instant attention. The concept of a Human having multiple powers was something both equal parts exciting, and dangerous. If Ruby's body followed the outlined laws of power, then her body was in serious danger of ripping itself apart. Combined with the damage her body had taken in the fight, and her utter exhaustion that had left her totally unconscious, she was probably in a critical state. Of course, she was being treated by 'The best doctors in all of Vale'.

This knowledge didn't do anything to help reassure Team RWBY in any way though. All their injuries had been comparatively minor, and barely even worth mentioning. Yang's deep cut down her arm had been stitched up, and she could expect to see a fairly large scar right down the side of her limb but at least on the bright side, it wasn't anything serious. Weiss had been checked out, and aside from requiring a few band aids and plasters on her face and body, she was fine. Of all the members, Blake had the least number of injuries, so she didn't even need an inspection on her person.

But on the other hand, Ruby had to been rushed into an immediate emergency medical procedure. Healing type Traits were commonly used on those sorts of operations, so it wasn't like this was going to take too long a time. Without Traits, she might have been in operations for up to fifteen hours. With them, now she was looking at being in there for only an hour and a half.

Again though, this didn't help to worried members of her Team, all sat opposing one another in the corridor outside her surgery room. Healing Traits could go two ways – They could either completely heal a patient, or they could kill them – Many such Traits required the victim to use up stamina, adrenaline, or give up something or other in exchange for a faster healing rate.

Given Ruby's situation…

There was one question that was hanging in the air between all three unspeaking teenagers, one that none of them had an answer to, and one that none of them knew how to ask. How could they ask, and how could any of their friends know? Each of them had been just as confused as the other in this situation, and there wasn't anything that could be said, or done, to help reassure anyone else.

They were all blind.

Yang however, was the one who finally bit the bullet, and asked the question.

"What the hell was that back there?..."

Blake and Weiss both looked towards the half-sister of Ruby, seeing her violet eyes filled to the brim with worry that never seemed to suit Yang. Whenever she was around, the only things that should be expected of her were cheerful optimism, or fury if someone had managed to piss her off in the worst ways possible. But seeing her filled with such fear for her sister's well-being wasn't a look that suited her.

But it further illustrated just how insane this entire situation was. If Yang didn't know about Ruby's powers, then who did? The question if Ruby had even been aware of what had been happening to her as she violently battered down an entire squad of Primals was still open, and no one could fill in the blank answer except for the girl, who currently was being seen to by about five doctors.

"Like I said… It looked to be some sort of optic blast. Some kind of ability that had various effects depending on who or what it came into contact with." Weiss responded. "I… I haven't seen any sort of power like that before. It's unheard of in Atlas."

"When I was with the White Fang, I met a lot of people." Blake added in, revealing a small piece of her past that she normally kept quiet about regarding the White Fang. She never spoke about her time with the group unless she felt either extremely comfortable, or a duty to do so. "I met a lot of Abnormals, like that Hero who saved us, but I never met a Human or Faunus who had more than two powers. I only met one person with a Dual Trait in the White Fang, and he got arrested years ago."

"So whatever this is… It's an extremely rare, if not totally isolated incident, unique to Ruby and her alone…" Yang added onto Blake's insinuation, to which the cat Faunus nodded solemnly. The explosive Impact Trait user just rested her head in her right hand, and sighed. "Of all the people this had to happen to, it had to happen to Ruby?... I'm starting to think the world just really hates us. Specifically just us."

Danger did seem to find them at an unprecedented rate, Weiss thought to herself. They hadn't even managed to go a month without some sort of dangerous attack or incident disrupting them since arriving at Beacon. Was the world just out to get them, or was there some reason that they seemed to get the short straw every single time?

Although, she had to remember that Ruby was the one who was on the short end of the stick this time.

Whatever her powers had been, they had certainly done a lot towards helping the group out. The one Primal with Meat Grinder had been bad enough, but a squad of them might have caused some serious problems. It was thanks to Ruby that they had only had to deal with a single enemy.

Bringing her hands together to attempt to calm her nerves down, Weiss allowed herself to close her eyes, thinking of her younger partner, and what, if anything, she could do. After a few moments of scouring, she came to a simple conclusion. Right now, there wasn't anything she could do the help her, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

The Atlas born girl felt her chest constrict at the knowledge that really, they only had themselves to blame for this. Vigilantism was illegal for this very reason, and Blake had been the one to bring news about the White Fang back to the group. Yang had been the one to jump on board with bringing them down, and Weiss hadn't tried to stop them in any way.

There were no bad guys they could spin the blame onto, and there wasn't any way to justify things to make themselves feel better.

This was…

"This is my fault." Blake suddenly admitted with a heavy sigh. With her bow lost during the fight, her feline ears bent forwards in a clear sign of her sadness and self-blame. When two pairs of eyes landed on her, she looked up weakly at the pair of them. "I was the one who wanted to go after those Primals… Because I heard about them being White Fang. I was the one who didn't mention anything about the Nullifiers to the Heroes, or to Beacon… I thought they had given up on those things, but I should have mentioned it to them anyway, to be safe. I…"

"Blake, stop." Weiss said suddenly, preventing her friend from going down this path of destruction on her own. "You couldn't have known about the Nullifiers. You said you'd left before they were being investigated again, didn't you? So that isn't your fault. And as for going after the Primals…" Weiss trailed off, before continuing again. "…We all went after them. It doesn't matter who suggested it anymore. We went as a team, and fought them like a team… So we're all at fault."

"She's right." Yang agreed, patting her hand on Blake's shoulder. Besides… we're training to be Heroes, aren't we? We aren't gonna be really good Heroes… If we don't put ourselves in danger."

"If we get to keep training to be Heroes." Blake quietly said, causing the other two girls to fall silent.

Blake had a very good point. Vigilantism was a major crime, no matter how one looked at it. And for students at Beacon to be acting like vigilantes… The punishment they would receive was destined to be sever. Ignorance wasn't an excuse either. They'd had a thousand lectures about the dangers of taking the law into one's own hands. While in the olden days, Vigilantism may have made the way for Heroes, nowadays, it could just as easily lead the way for Villainy.

They'd be lucky if they just got expelled, and not thrown into prison.

The consequences hadn't even been something either the Patch born or Atlas born girls had even considered, their worry for their team leader, each for their own various reasons, overshadowing their worry about their future careers. But now that Blake made that point, it came crashing down like a ton of bricks.

Their futures as Heroes could very well be totally trashed.

For the briefest of moments, everything that Weiss had done to even get to try to come to Beacon to train to be a Hero lashed before her. The fights she'd gotten into with her family, and the tireless training and constant combat practice. The physical training and fitness levels she'd had to achieve, and every single test that had to be overcome if she wanted to try to achieve her goal.

She saw all of that, crashing to the ground. Years of her life, thrown away in an instant, because she had gone along with this plan. Suddenly, she felt hopeless, like everything she'd ever tried to be had been all in vain, and that soon, she'd have to be dragged back to Atlas to fulfil whatever destiny that he had in mind for her. And she'd fight it until the very end, but inevitably, she would fail, her flame snuffed out by exhaustion and resignation.

But then she saw Ruby in her mind's eye, and the shattering of her Hero future seemed to just stop. Inwardly, Weiss cursed at herself for letting herself think about the future more than the here and now, and what was actually important.

"That doesn't matter." She said suddenly. "Ruby's what's important right now. We can worry about our futures once we know she's okay."

"Right."

Sudden additions of a deeper male voice caused the three teenagers to jump back for a slight second, until the recognised the man as the Hero who had saved them from their predicament. Weiss didn't recall ever catching him name, more focused on getting Ruby to someplace safe, though she was certain that Yang had mentioned his name before. An older man with a cape like Ruby's and short black hair, he wasn't the type of person who, by default, stood out. Although Yang mentioned that he was related.

Once again, Yang referred to him by name. "Uncle Qrow, where did you go?"

"I needed to let Oz know where you all were." He said, collapsing into a seat next to the blonde girl, and reaching for a flask he kept within his belt. He took a long swig of whatever was before sighing and looked at them with what could only be described as both worry and pity. "A huge explosion in the middle of the night isn't exactly the sort of thing that you can easily miss. What were you even doing out there?"

"We found out that the White Fang were recruiting Primals, and they've got some sort of device that lets them suppress our Traits."

"And Ruby?"

Yang looked away for a moment, before she explained everything that happened to her uncle, who sat there and listened to what she had to say. He didn't even particularly seem surprised that any of this had happened. Almost like he'd been expecting this sort of thing to happen for years now. After Yang had explained, he took another drink from his flask, and leaned forward.

"You're sure that she was using multiple powers? There's no chance that it was some sort of Illusion Type power?"

"Not at all." Blake confirmed. "I would have been able to tell."

"She was definitely using multiple powers… Kind of like you, actually." Compared Yang.

"If she's using as many powers as me, then she's about as Human as I am too." The older man sighed, leaning back into his chair. "Your dad isn't gonna be thrilled about this."

That statement caused both Blake and Weiss a spark of confusion, one that Weiss sought an explanation for. "You're saying you're not Human?"

"Schnee's got decent hearing. Nice." He wafted his hand like he was removing a fly from his face before he answered the Schnee girl, sardonically being sarcastic as Yang knew him to be. "Nah, I'm not a Human. Don't let my appearance trick you, I'm an Abnormal. I've got five different powers at my use."

"He mostly uses Blood Control." Yang explained. "A lot of people mistake him for being Human because he doesn't use his other powers that much."

"I use them when I need to use them." Qrow defended himself with good humour, before he sighed again. "Didn't think that Primal kid was worth using anything else on. That was a screw up. Damn it." He looked at the three girls again though, continuing with his investigation as to what they had learned. "So the White Fang is now dealing with Primals… And those same Primals were in Beacon at the same time… Oz's not gonna be happy about this. Not with Vytal so close."

The Vytal tournament… Now that Weiss stopped to think about it, that same tournament could easily be a target for the White Fang, especially if they had devices to cancel out superpowers. It would also explain why they had started to recruit Primal members to their ranks. They were members who still had a huge evolutionary advancement, without the need for any kind of superpower. Their natural strength could easily defeat a thousand unpowered Humans and Faunus, so the idea that Vytal was the target...

"Anyone want a drink?" Qrow suddenly offered when he saw that everyone had reached the same conclusion as Weiss just had. When no one accepted his offer, he just shrugged and took another gulp. "There's no way Oz'll keep Beacon in the tournament after this. It'll be PR suicide, but the politicians can deal with all that crap. I can probably put in a good word for all of you, so he might go easier on you… But I can tell you right now, he's not gonna exactly be lenient with punishment at the least. Best case scenario is that you get suspended from lessons for the next three months."

"But we uncovered all of this information!" Yang defended loudly, standing up so quickly it threatened to knock her chair down. "We all got hurt – Ruby's still in surgery, because we risked everything to uncover all of this!"

"That's another thing we need to talk about."

The sudden serious tone that this previously lax man had used suddenly sent shivers down everyone's spines. His red eyes shot between each member of Team RWBY, judging if each of them was safe to entrust with what he was going to tell them. He seemed to be conflicted, before he dismissed all of the thoughts that he had in favour of being honest with the girls before him.

"What I'm gonna tell you doesn't leave us, got it? What I'm going to tell you about Ruby – That's going to become public knowledge soon enough, but there's something else that you're all going to need to be aware of regarding her." He paused. "Regarding me too, now that I think about it."

"Qrow?"

"About Abnormals generally."

"What do Abnormals have to do with Ruby?" Weiss questioned, looking into row's red eyes with her own blue ones.

"Abnormals are arguably the world's strongest species right now." Qrow opened up his explanation with one of the current biggest debates in the modern world. "Humans and Faunus have the strongest Traits, but Faunus also have night vision by default, which gives them an edge over Humans. Primals are a whole other story, since they traded in half their superpowers effectiveness for natural superhuman strength. You saw that first hand.

But Abnormals like me are another story. We have a multitude of powers. The world record for powers in one Abnormal is sixteen. While we trade in a lot of our powers strength in turn to be able to house all these various powers, we train to the point where it doesn't even make a difference.

Essentially, Abnormals have more versatility than a Human or Faunus ever will."

This was a rhetoric that was often used in debates, by Abnormals themselves, and by pragmatist Humans who saw matters in a lot more blunt a way than most others did. Essentially, it was a huge talk on how much stronger the Abnormals were compared to everyone else.

It was never welcome, and it had done a lot to make Abnormals disliked the world over. Partly because, it had some validity to it.

"Question is, where did we come from?"

"Abnormals were supposed to have evolved from the Faunus." Blake pointed out, remembering all the books she had read on the subject. "Your species evolved from Menagerie about four hundred years ago."

"That's true in the history books, but if that's the case here, I need to ask you something."

Qrow's voice suddenly became quieter, as if to make sure anyone around him didn't hear.

"Where did the Grimm DNA come from in Abnormals?"

"Grimm DNA?!" That idea was totally unheard of. Grimm evaporated into dust when killed, so the idea of them actually having some sort of genetic structure didn't make any sense. They were soulless, dark creatures that barely even seemed to have an origin, never mind some sort of genetic makeup.

"Well, I say it's DNA, but we're not really sure what it is." Qrow explained. "There was a Hero a while ago who had a power to manipulate the movements of Grimm. It let us study the Grimm, and there was one similarity between Abnormals and Grimm. About one percentage of our being is the same. It's not public knowledge, because if the world knew Abnormals and Grimm could somehow be related, then discrimination and prejudice against Abnormals could peak into all-out war. Humans learned that with the Faunus the hard way."

Blake didn't say anything to that.

"But… This doesn't make sense to me." Yang said, catching her Uncle's attention. "You said this was stuff we needed to know about Ruby… what does Ruby have to do with Abnormals, or them being genetically similar to the Grimm?"

"Honestly, I was expecting this to happen to you, Yang, not to Ruby." The Abnormal man said, taking a swig of his flask. "Raven's Abnormal, just like I am, but you're Human in every way." The mention of the person Yang had identified as her mother caused her to flinch visibly, but she seemed to push that particular obsession to the side in favour of figuring out what was going on with her sister, right here and now. She settled down, and Qrow continued. "Humans and Abnormals are compatible, like Humans and Faunus are. So I expected something like this to happen to you… I didn't expect it to happen to Ruby."

"What happened to Ruby?"

"Ruby… Her genetic makeup is extremely prone to huge mutations. Qrow explained. "When she was born, Tai told me her eyes mutated to a silver colouring just a few hours after. Then to blue, then to green, then back to silver, which they are now. I'm not sure what caused this level of mutation, but the doctors had to scan Ruby to make sure that this was just an isolated deal. Maybe she was one of the few kids that was born with a Trait?... Nah, that's not what they found out."

He looked at his niece's team and sighed. "Ruby has an incredibly rare mutation that can totally change her entire species, right down to her DNA. She's one of maybe three cases that were even bothered to be recorded as a Human-mutated-Abnormal."

Human – Mutated – Abnormal. The phrase didn't even need to explanations that Qrow had given. Weiss absorbed the information the quickest, while Yang and Blake still needed a few moments to process exactly what they had just heard.

Ruby wasn't a Human anymore. She was an Abnormal. She was one of the most feared species that even existed on the planet today, and that knowledge was something that shook Weiss to the very core. A Human – Mutated – Abnormal… Wasn't even a concept she had ever entertained, but this day had been filled with those, so at this point, she was willing to accept just about anything.

While it explained the sudden display of her newfound optical powers… It still failed to explain so much more.

"Wait, what?" Yang spoke clearly, though her face betrayed her, clear confusion and utter bewilderment were totally coating her entire perception of what was occurring. Like it wasn't even real, like she was looking at the world from such a way that it was literally bending the facts. Weiss couldn't even blame her. This entire thing felt insane.

"Like I said, I never expected this to happen to Ruby." Qrow went on. "Summer and Tai are both unquestionably Human. If this should have happened to anyone, biologically, Yang should have been the one this happened to. When Tai found out about this mutation, he wanted to figure out what happened…" Yet another sigh. "The reason – It was pure luck. That was all. Ruby has a one in a trillion mutation that totally rewrites her genetic makeup if a certain condition is met. What that condition was… We didn't know, though I think now we do."

To Yang and Blake, and even to Weiss to a certain extend, it became apparent what had triggered all of this. Ruby had changed when she had seen all of them, battered broken, bloodied and barely even able to stand on their own feet. Blake, used as a prisoner and weapon against her own friends and teammates. Yang, with a brutal injury to her arm.

Weiss, beaten to within an inch of her life.

The cause of this mutation's activation was… A love for her team. A desire to protect them.

A desire to protect Weiss. That was what Yang came to understand. And Blake came to that same conclusion. Weiss even did… But it still felt so alien to even think of, that she struggled to accept it.

Intense emotions, and a longing to protect the people she cared about had caused Ruby to activate, totally unknowingly, the mutation that would forever change the very person that she was, and activate her latent Abnormal abilities. It had all been to protect them.

To… Protect her.

"A Dual Trait and a Human gene changing mutation." Qrow raised his flask suddenly, like he was giving a toast. "Ruby Rose, ladies. The single luckiest – Or unlucky – Person on this planet."

Though desperately trying to make light of the situation, it was pretty clear to everyone that this news disturbed Qrow as much as it did anyone else, since they were still basically in the dark. There wasn't much news regarding Ruby in spite of all of the new information that they had just learned. She could still be in danger right now.

Team RWBY had needed to know all of this information because if Ruby did pull through, then they needed to know exactly what they were working with. Someone who had Grimm blood in them, and was genetically one of the most coincidental people on the planet. A Dual Trait combined with an entire mutation that changed her species. The chances of it were astronomically low, yet here they were, presented to everyone clear as day.

"….If…" Shaky as her voice was, Blake dared to ask another question. "If… Ruby now has multiple powers… Can she control them like she always could?..."

"No chance." Qrow answered, flatly. "That's like if you grew a tail, you wouldn't know instantly how to use it, would you? Ruby's going to have to learn to control her newfound powers in the same way she had to learn to control her Teleporting abilities as well as her Kinetic Speed powers." He used for a moment and then put on a smile. "Being an Abnormal isn't a bad thing at all. I manage. But it's because Ruby is such a bizarre case that you're all worried. I taught her how to master her Teleporting abilities, and I intend to do the same for her new optical powers."

"You only could teach her about her Teleporting because you're a Teleporter as well." Yang reminded her uncle. "I think lasers are sorta different to Teleporting, aren't they?"

"Not like there's any other choice." A second passed. "Are you all afraid of her now?"

Fear towards Ruby hadn't been something Weiss had even thought of… Though now that she thought about it, it would have made a lot more sense for her to be afraid of her team leader after learning all of this asinine sounding information. Ruby was now a total unknown, and possible danger to the people that surrounded her. By definition, didn't that make her someone that she should be afraid of?

But it was the opposite. Weiss didn't feel anything different when it came to the subject of her partner. Ruby was the same person she had been three hours ago, wasn't she? The news of her being Abnormal now wasn't something that changed her perception.

Weiss didn't feel a thing different towards Ruby… And that included the feelings that she'd finally figured out before this entire mess began.

Her teammates felt the same. But the knowledge of her transforming into an entirely new species….

It was a lot to take in.

Weiss struggled to think of what it was that she should do. Before everything that had happened, she had been so sure, her mind finally made up on what it was that she needed to tell Ruby. Everything, if it had gone just right, would have been the perfect end to this entire escapade of nonsense feelings Weiss had been battling with recently.

But with the more recent revelations, that Ruby now had Abnormal blood in her…. She just wasn't sure what to think. Would this change anything? Weiss couldn't see a reason why it should change things, but the unknown factor surrounding her know was just too shaky a foundation for her to even begin to think about anything.

The world had changed for her today, and she wasn't sure what to make of all the changes that were happening to her world. Their futures were just totally unknown factors at this point, and the possibility of her becoming a Hero now seemed slim. The possibility any of them had at becoming a Hero now seemed slim. Everything felt different, when in reality, only one thing was truly different.

It was just her luck that the thing that was different was the person that had been causing her all these feelings.

She just didn't know what to do, what to make of everything.

The conclusion that she'd come to before the mission had begun was so simply, yet so unexpected that it had made Weiss doubt herself many times. So often the idea had jumped into her head, but she'd dismissed it completely as impossible, that there was no way what she was thinking could possibly be right.

But as time had passed, she'd considered the idea more and more, until she came to a conclusion of her own.

It wasn't impossible. In fact, it was the only real option left.

She had fallen for Ruby.

In all honesty, she couldn't even point to a specific point and say that that was the moment when she knew that she'd fallen for her partner. She wasn't even sure if there was a moment like that, but the fact remained that it was, well and truly, the only explanation… And the only one that felt right, that she had left to her.

When had it happened? What had caused this sudden spike in her affections towards the now Abnormal girl? What had it been that had made her realize that these weren't feelings that were just going to go away anymore? That no matter how much she tried to mask them, that they weren't going to disappear?

She didn't know. She doubted that she'd ever know. One thing that she did know what this.

When Ruby had fallen, when she thought that Ruby wasn't going to wake up… What she felt right now… She'd never experienced real horror like that before in her entire life. Not once had she ever felt the crippling fear in her stomach that made her want to vomit her insides up. Many things had happened to her in her life. Neglect, her scar, her loneliness… Everything that had occurred to her…

It didn't sting half as bad as the thought of losing Ruby did. When she prayed to the Gods that she never believed in, that she'd go through all that pain again, that she'd take whatever bullets she had to… That she'd gladly go back to Atlas and live under an oppressive boot the rest of her life as long as Ruby was okay…

Really, that was all she needed to know. That was all that she'd needed to know that really, if she thought that she was going to be able to mask these emotions as something else… She was just lying to herself.

She was in love with Ruby.

When she'd spoken to her on the rooftop as they Teleported over to the warehouses… She'd told Ruby that she'd needed to speak with her one they were back.

She'd needed to tell Ruby bout all these feelings that she had for her. That she felt this way about her. Even if she was met with some kind of rejection, she wanted ruby to at least know where she stood. She wasn't about to get down and beg for Ruby to give her a chance. She was a Schnee, after all… But if something had come of it…

Then she wouldn't have resisted. She would have welcomed it with open arms. Yang had been right about her feelings for her half-sister the entire time. She'd known before Weiss herself had.

Now though, she wondered if that still applied. She wondered, was it selfish of her to think of what Ruby's response would be if she even remembered? Was it going to be okay to even ask about that in the state that she was in?

Did the same questions still apply?

"What's on your mind, Weiss?"

Though she had gone to the entrance of the hospital to think alone, Yang seemed to have a way of finding the Schnee heiress whenever she wanted to. Sometimes, Weiss wondered if Yang followed her, or had some sort of tracking bug on her or something equally whacky and so clearly Yang-like that it wasn't worth crossing off the list of possibilities.

She didn't say anything when Yang stood next to her, and watched the rain fall with her. Since they had entered the hospital, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and huge rainclouds had made their way over the Vale city. Weiss liked to just watch the rain fall. It reminded her of the snow back home at Atlas, only warmer. Growing up in such a cold kingdom, rain in a nation like Vale felt like taking a shower, not that Weiss was about to just jump into the downpour right now.

It was just pleasant to have nearby while she was trying to think.

"Well, Ruby's in the clear now." Yang informed her teammate with a smile. "Doctors aren't sure, but Ruby recovered pretty well. She might even wake up in the next few hours. That's good, huh?"

"Mhmm." Weiss nodded without making too much noise. Inwardly, she felt like an entire anvil had just been removed from her chest. She let out the longest sigh as possible, while remaining silent as she could.

Truth be told… She just didn't know what to say to Yang in this situation. She was Ruby's sister. Did that mean she approved of her, or was she going to try to kill her every time she looked at her sister? Yang joked around a lot… But that always made it hard to tell when she was being serious. Did she really know the truth… Or was she oblivious?

For a short while, Yang just stood there with Weiss, watching the rain fall just as her Atlas born teammate did. They didn't speak, but appreciated one another's company nonetheless. Despite the vastly different personalities that they had, they had less conflict than Weiss and Ruby seemed to, which Yang fund amusing. Although Yang knew why now…

A few moments passed before Yang spoke again. "You know, it's okay to admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you've been worried about Ruby." She offered her Thermo Trait using teammate a smile. "Ruby's old enough to make her own choices, you know. Even if I didn't like something that she did, I wouldn't be able to stop her from doing anything that she liked… that made her happy… Even if that means I worry about her." She then proceeded to stare at a puddle, watching closely as the water hit the surface, and then jumped back out as the impact caused the water to return to its original point, and jump up in place. "Ruby made her choice when she did at she did… And I'm worried sick about her…. But it was her choice… At the end of everything, I respect it."

"…She's lucky to have you then." Weiss told her.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." She dismissed quickly. "That's… Not exactly what I'm thinking about though."

"Ah, you're thinking if your sweetheart will be okay."

The very first thought was that it was good to see Yang making jokes again, showing her thick skin and ability to make a joke about any situation. Weiss came very close to laughing like a maniac in that situation, were it not for the severity of the situation. The second thought was… Yang was right. She was worried about Ruby. Still pondering what she was supposed to say when she saw her again.

The smallest shift in her head was joined by a softly spoken sentence. "Yeah… I am."

"I just told you Ruby was old enough to make her own choices, didn't I?" Yang lightly tapped Weiss' arm with a small grin on her face. "If Ruby's happy to be with you, then I'm happy for her as well."

"You were serious about all those jokes?!"

"I'm more observant than you give me credit for." The Explosive Impact Trait user just offered another kind smile. "It's obvious you like Ruby. You fight with her way too much to not be."

"I preferred it when you were just making jokes at my expense." Weiss said, a small blush appearing on her cheeks. She didn't know how long it had been there, but she only noticed that her face was growing hot as Yang made that observation.

"You should tell her." The taller girl said. "If you make her happy, I'm cool with you two being together. That's all I'm worried about, Ruby being happy with you… If you do hurt her though…" Yang proceeded to unleash a series of explosions in her palms, but she kept her smile on the entire time."

"Don't hurt the younger sister of a girl with explosive superpowers. Got it." Weiss managed to chuckled, but she got the message loud and clear. It was utterly pointless though.

She had no intention of hurting Ruby.

"…Thanks, Yang."

"Anytime, Ice Queen."

One hour later, Ruby was cleared. Not only that, she had recovered from said performances, and was allowed visitors. Her recovery had been swift and totally inhuman, and the reason discovered was simple.

In addition to her optical powers, she also had some sort of Healing ability, that activated when she was injured, regardless of if she wanted it to or not. Her body would simply heal itself regardless of any input on Ruby's half. Doing this though, it took away her stamina, which didn't mean it was a perfect healing mechanism.

It had its limits. Hence why Ruby was so utterly exhausted when everyone came in to see her. Yang's was easily the most emotional, outright hugging her bedridden sister as tightly as she could. Any worries regarding her affection towards her half sibling because of her now Abnormal physiology were well and truly dashed.

A bit too far in the opposite direction. As Yang tightly clutched onto her sister, Ruby looked like she was about to burst. She tried, weak as she still was, to push Yang off of her. "Yang… Can't… Breathe…"

"Oh, sorry!" Yang quickly apologised and got up, keeping her sister close all the same. "I was seriously worried about you, sis. Don't freak me out like that again."

"I'm not trying to make some sort of habit of it or anything." Ruby smiled. "Honestly, I don't even really remember a thing that happened. It's just kind of big blur, y'know?"

"Long story short, you kicked Primal butt." Blake flatly stated with a smile on her face as well. "Glad to see you're okay, Ruby. You've been out for a while."

Collectively, Ruby had been unconscious for only about five hours, a very short space of time in comparison to what she had been though. To everyone, it had felt like a week. Constant worry and pacing… A lack of sleep mixed with the anxiety everyone felt for their young leader made it impossible for them to know how long it had really been, without a clock handy.

"Uncle Qrow's here too, Ruby." Yang informed her sister with a smile. "He's the one who helped us."

"Uncle Qrow's here?!" Ruby suddenly began beaming like a maniac at the revelation her biologically unrelated uncle was here. "Where is he?"

"Talking to Ozpin. He's explaining everything that happened… And some other things."

"What other things?"

"…You'll find out."

"Uh huh… Hey, where's Weiss?" After scanning the room a few times, Ruby noted that their team was short by one member not being here, which did fill her with a bit of concern for what was happening. "Did – Did Weiss get hurt?"

"Nah, she's totally fine." Yang assured her, amused by the concern she was showing for her partner. "Weiss… She wants to talk to you on her own. It's important, she says. And private. Me and Blake are gonna step back outside for a bit so you two can talk, okay?"

Clear confusion and concern was evident in the silver eyes of the Abnormal girl, but she nodded in understanding, and allowed her teammates to exit the room. She had no idea what to expect from Weiss, being totally unaware of what it was that her partner and friend wanted to talk to her about. She was expecting to have her ears yelled off about how stupid she'd been for an action that she didn't even remember doing.

She overheard a small conversation that the two members of her team had with Weiss, but was unable to make out any particular words that were said, before the door was shut, and she realized that she was alone in the room with Weiss. She heard a few footsteps before the pale skinned girl eventual turned the corner to look at her.

When she saw the injured girl, Weiss almost had to look away in surprise at what bandages she still had on. A load around her abdomen, and a brace for her neck, which had been taken off now. Multiple cuts along the side of her back, as indicated by a large number of bandages that went wrapped around the girl's body in different directions. Combined with pure exhaustion, Ruby had suffered some pretty bad injuries to boot.

Yet she was still smiling.

"Heya, Weiss."

How the younger girl managed this sort of bright and sunny personality while being bedridden was a question Weiss was going to ask herself until the end of time. She forced herself to reply, trying hard not to chastise her for being reckless, or from becoming far too emotional.

"Hello, Ruby." Weiss made her way next to a seat by Ruby's bedside, where she placed herself down and looked towards the younger girl. "How are you feeling?"

"Kinda good, actually. Better than you'd expect from someone in a hospital bed."

"That's good… Do you… Remember how you got here?"

"Not really. It's just sort of a blur. I told Yang and Blake that I don't really remember a lot of it clearly. Blake said I kicked Primal butt though." Explained Ruby, making a few little fist pumping gestures as she told the story. "I… Remember that I was fighting someone… And then I couldn't feel anything… Like I just shut down."

Weiss recognised that as the moment when the Nullifiers were activated against her. She evidentially didn't remember the pummelling that she took afterwards, which was good. It meant she remembered less pain.

"You got knocked out by a device called a Nullifier back then. They can supress our powers." Weiss explained briefly. Ruby would be told all of this stuff in detail, but right now, she didn't need to know everything.

"Oh, those things? Blake and I found them in that warehouse… But she said they didn't work… I guess then the White Fang fixed them… Hey Weiss, are you okay?"

"Hmm? I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"You seem sort of… Distracted. Is everything okay?"

The Schnee girl couldn't decide if she was more touched or if she was more gobsmacked that Ruby was asking if she was okay. Here she was laid up in a hospital with a thousand and one injuries that she had suffered in a brutal battle with a large group of Primals that wanted nothing more than to beat her to death, and she was asking if Weiss was okay because she seemed a bit distracted.

With a sigh, Weiss decided that if she didn't do this now… She wasn't going to be able to.

"... Look, Ruby, I need to speak to you about something. I'd prefer to have done this a bit later when you were out of the hospital… But if I don't do this now I don't think I can."

"Okay…. What's going on?" There was a definite look of worry now in her eyes that Weiss recognised, no doubt reflected in her own. Ideally, she wouldn't be throwing this at Ruby just after she woke up… But if Ozpin and Qrow came into the room right now, then too many things might start happening and her chance would be lost.

"….You remember back on the rooftops… When I told you I needed to talk to you?"

"Yeah?..."

"Well… It's about that… I need to talk to you about… Somethings I've been feeling." Weiss quickly began to twiddle her thumbs, unsure of what exactly she was supposed to say next. Though she had come in here with serious plans to explain to Ruby exactly what she felt, there weren't any words to help her do so. It wasn't anything like she'd expected. Her words just froze up, and she tried to think of them as clearly as possible.

Eventually, she just spoke and said it how it was.

"…When you got knocked out in that fight…. There was… A really part of me that thought that you weren't going to get back up again." She started. "I really did think that… you were gone for a short moment. When I found out you were still alive… I just… There wasn't anything… that I wouldn't have done to make sure that you were okay.

And… I've been thinking about that a lot. What I'd do if you weren't here… And I don't… Think that I would be anywhere close as to how happy I am with you around. The fight we had… The one where I attacked you… Everything that frustrated me about you was just… Gone after that. It was like I could see you as an entirely different person…. But it wasn't like that… I was seeing you. Just you."

"W-Weiss?"

"After that fight," Weiss continued, the words now refusing to stop, even if she wanted them too. "I… I've felt closer to you than I've felt to anyone in my entire life, and can't even begin to express how much that's affected me."

"Weiss?"

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to even begin saying this since I've never felt this way before, but – "

"Weiss."

Before another word could exit Weiss' mouth, Ruby had brought up her left arm onto Weiss' cheek. Her touch was soft and gentle, like it was barely even there. For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another, neither of them speaking. Ruby just held the biggest smile on her face, and looked like she was about to start letting tears run down her face if she wasn't careful.

"If this is gonna be a whole confession, I can save you some time." Ruby smiled. "I like you as well."

For a moment, Weiss felt like their positions had suddenly just turned completely around, and that she was the stuttering hyperactive who barely knew how to shut her mouth, and Ruby was the one who was calm about the entire thing. The mere thought of that caused her to blush a bright crimson scarlet colour, and she used her hands to hide her face, not that it helped her in the slightest.

Ruby just laughed to herself. "Kinda feels like we've swapped places, huh?"

"Shut. Up."

"You're the one who came in here to tell me that, aren't you?"

"….Did Yang mention this to you?"

"No, I swear she didn't! Blake neither!"

"So I'm just transparent then… Great."

Laughing a little bit, Ruby just smiled at Weiss, still convinced almost that she was in some sort of dream… But if she was, she fully intended to make the most of it. If it turned out this was reality… then she'd be totally fine with that too. "Like I'm any better… I thought you just didn't say anything cause… Well, you didn't like me."

"…Took me a while to realize I did… If I fell in love with such a dolt, what exactly does that mean I am?"

"Uh… Dolt squared?"

"That was rhetorical."

Giggling at Weiss' clear embarrassment, Ruby realized that this was actually the real world. This all felt far too real to be fake, under any sort of circumstances. "I'd get up and kiss you, but uh… The whole 'Patients must not leave their beds until they are cleared to do so' thing…"

She saw Weiss' blush turn dark red to outright steaming. Whatever fronts she put up, Weiss was just as prone as anyone else to getting flustered. Probably more so. Her fluster caused Ruby to laugh outright again… But she didn't expect Weiss to actually get up and lean over…. Just out of Ruby's reach.

Like she was daring Ruby to follow through with what she'd said.

"This help?"

"…Yeah." Ruby smirked, and leaned forward, not stopping until she felt her lips brush against Weiss'.

Lots of info into this one... There you go guys. the pros and cons of Ruby's powers will be fully explained next time.

so here's the thing - this story won't go past 15 chapters, If I do this right. I have another WhiteRose story that I have planned out which is going to be absolutely amazing, and this one is now mostly a concept piece for it. A lot of the ideas in here are going to be adopted into the new one, but I feel like you guys will love what I have planned for the new one. I will finish this story, since It would bug me if I didn't, but that's why this chapter is so long. Less chapters in exchange for longer ones.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you all next time. See ya!