Chapter Text
In a dusty room I come to assume
That I've been doomed to lose my mind tonight
Too weak to fight
So I tried to save face then I rest my case
The judge pulls me aside says c'est la vie
Let your darker side come out to feed
Kangaroo Court by Capital Cities
With the buzz of electricity, the city hums beneath the steady rumble of people making their way across the seedy outpost. Vale Outpost 31 , or “Patch” lives and breaths off traveling spacers. The space station rotates just outside the furthest ring of Vale itself, the last stop for anyone on their way toward the Mistral system. The biggest landmarks on the station are Patchwork Bar and the attached Rosewick Spaceship Repair .
The area around Rosewick and Patchwork is considered the “Official Spacer” part of the station, but beyond it, only the brave or stupid spend much time there. The shadows grow thick, hiding space scum and secrets both large and small.
The soft click-clank of a lock sliding open and Ruby, the “Red Wolf,” smiles. She's no novice to picking locks on fancy shuttles left unguarded in the rough side of town and the sound of the cab depressurizing confirms her success. Her oxygen mask, stylized with her namesake, shifts as she moves. The make and model of the shuttle are familiar, so she maneuvers around it with ease. This particular shuttle doesn’t have much for valuable parts, used only by government officials and cruisers, but some of the scrap is useful for prosthetics, and Yang was in need of an upgrade for her arm.
Nearby, a streetlamp flickers out and movement catches the thief’s eye. In a quick movement, the masked woman drops behind the open door and flicks two switches on her boots before leaping into the air and latching onto the lip of a nearby building. A figure approaches slowly, stoically, in familiar armor.
Shit… A cruiser, the police force of the outer ring. She watches the figure make an arc around the vehicle. They’re moving slowly, but with purpose, and Ruby feels sweat drip down the back of her neck.
A flicker of blue highlights the figure’s face as they scan the vehicle and the surrounding area. Ruby’s hand tightens around the single piece of scrap she’d managed to lift before the shuttle’s owner appeared. The backstreets are silent save for the city’s dull thrum, and the light click of the cruiser’s steps. It’s too risky to stay, but moving too fast will draw the attention of the other individual in the alley.
With careful eyes, Ruby watches the officer as she fumbles with the scrap she’d obtained, but as she slides the bits of chip and wires into her cloak another cluster of components tumbles out. The sound is deafening as it hits the cold stone of the outpost’s surface, and shimmering blue follows the only location the item could have come from, focusing on Ruby.
She’s honestly a little impressed at the speed with that the officer draws and fires her weapon, doubly so when the laser glides past her head into the slick metal building behind her. It’s not a mistake, but a precise shot aimed to scare, but Ruby doesn’t flinch.
“Come down or the next shot won’t miss.” She’s being generous, Ruby can tell.
“Can’t we just talk about this like adults?” Ruby murmurs, just loud enough to be heard over the deafened silence, still perched along the smooth metal wall.
“Talking ended when you put your grimey scrapper hands on my patrol shuttle.” Blue light glows as the trooper’s mask ignites further, enhancing the dark corners of the alley.
In reflex, Ruby activates her own mask, blinding red hides her face above the muzzle of her breather. “ Scrapper? That seems a bit harsh.” Her voice digitizes as the voice distorter engages, filling the air with her mumbled static
The situation isn’t bad, but it’s not good. She needs to get away and put some space between the tense officer and herself, but determined blue follows her every movement, every twitch, every eye flicker.
“What else would you call a vagabond breaking into expensive cars in the outer rim of the Atlas system?”
“The outer ring of most systems,” Ruby mutters again, eyes jumping from one exit plan to another. “I prefer the term scavenger.”
“Your labels don’t matter to the laws of the Atlas systems.” The officer rumbles, her eyes narrowing on the thief. “Now come down. ”
“I don’t think I will.” Ruby chirps, her mask flickering as she jumps into an arc over the top of the building against her back to slide down the sloped back side away from the officer and out of sight.
There’s a curse before the sound of Atlas Systems standard issue jet boots ignite and the silver-haired do-gooder crests the top of Ruby’s former perch. The sight sends a jolt of excitement through the thief as she continues her escape through the neon-lit streets.
Ruby jumps, weaves, and scales the familiar stalls and buildings of the night walk district; ducking past familiar faces and amused head shakes as the people of Patch watch the officer continue her chase. Down an alley, up a drain pipe, through a brothel, Ruby takes her frustrated tail through a tour of some of the best and worst places Patch has to offer. She laughs when the woman catches up, and shifts up and around a coms booth as the officer swings her baton angrily.
“Run all you like, thief , I will catch you!”
“Oh, I have no doubt!” Ruby replies with a grin, shifting out of the Atleasian’s reach. “You’re way better than any of the bucket-for-brains dingos that have passed through before!” She flips again, landing upon another building’s edge with a smirk. “You’re actually a challenge!”
“I’ve given you long enough. Come down and stop this needless chase.”
Ruby gets out a single breath before the woman withdraws her gun again and fires another shot. Her quick thinking has her tap at the disengage switch at the base of her boots, sending her sliding down another smooth building with a shout.
“You brat! ” Shouts the officer, moving back from Ruby’s sudden landing, She’s quick, and determined, eyes locked on Ruby’s shadowed form, and flickering red mask. “The Red Wolf, I should have known.” She barks bitterly, withdrawing her stun baton again, and readying her defenses. “A silent scrapper, operating solely in the region of the Patch outpost,” She ducks in close, swinging her baton for the thief’s middle.
“I think you have me confused for someone else!” Ruby fibs, dodging at the last second. “The mask can be kind of misleading! I’m sure!” She dodges another furious strike but takes a knee to her stomach. The blow sends her backward to duck another high blow aimed at her head.
“Only steals small components from high-end cruisers and police vehicles,” The baton shifts in her hand at the same moment the officer presses the muzzle of her laser pistol to Ruby’s chest. “I’ve followed your thefts, the small components up to the illegal arms deals.”
“Wait- what?” Ruby lifts her arms in defense, careful not to make any quick movements. “You really do have me confused with someone else.”
The officer presses the laser pistol harder into Ruby’s chest with a scoff and holsters her baton to retrieve her badge. “I’m Officer Weiss Schnee, civilian defense operative, and you’re under arrest Red Wolf.”
“Listen!” The officer has her handcuffed, hands locked in front of herself before she can continue her plea. “I’m the red wolf, yeah, but I don’t know what illegal arms deals you’re talking about!”
“A likely story.” The gun is pressed into her back now, and Weiss presses her forward.
“Listen to me,” Ruby whines, spinning to look the officer in the face. Her mask flickers and reveals her face fully. “I steal components for prosthetics upgrades and fun gadgets, not for any weaponry! I build things to help fix spaceships and cruisers! I’m not some top-tier criminal!”
“I’m not the one you’re going to need to convince, scum .”
Ruby growls shuffling forward back in the direction of the officer’s cruiser. “What organization do you even think I’m working for? No arms dealers even port here, and I haven’t been off station since I was eight.”
The statement causes Weiss to pause. After a beat, she shoves the theft forward with a huff. “Galactic Reinforcement Industries, and Machine Mechanisms.”
Again, Ruby spins to look down at the officer, “You think I’m working with GRIMM? I wouldn’t work with them if you put a gun to my head.”
The outburst causes Weiss to roll her eyes. She’d done her investigation. GRIMM had a connection to this spaceport. All the thefts committed by the red wolf aligned perfectly with the port records of GRIMM’s top operatives, and the release of their newest weapon advancements.
They’re nearly back to the cruiser when Ruby hears a sound that chills her bones. It’s a distorted whale call, computerized and chilling. It’s a noise she’s only heard once in her life and she breaks out in a cold sweat.
Weiss stalls for a moment, accessing her coms to identify the mass of ship that’s entered the station’s section of space. The small speaker fizzles and sparks burst into white-hot metal at the touch as another deep roar slices through space like a lance.
“Officer Schnee? We have to go.” Ruby’s voice wavers as she once again tries to turn around.
The officer stops her and pushes more firmly against her back towards the cruiser as the sound echoes across the station again. In a panic, Ruby rushes forward, making Weiss stumble behind her. With practiced expertise, Ruby jumps, planting her feet on the door of the cruiser and launching herself up and over Weiss’s head. She twists, landing behind the officer with a thump . She scans the cuffs on the officer’s badge, hooked to her belt, and releases her wrists. Weiss twists to recapture the thief, but Ruby is ready, grabbing both of the officer’s wrists in her own and cuffing them herself.
“Sorry officer, but we can’t stay here, and I can’t in good conscience leave you here.” With a single tap, she activates the woman’s face mask, cutting off her screams of protest, throwing her over her shoulder, and begins running.
There’s an explosion, and a spaceship trying to port catches the wrong side of the attack and erupts into shrapnel that showers against the protective barrier over the port. Ruby hisses, watching the barrier flicker dangerously before her eyes. She rounds the darkened city streets into the main port; it’s mostly abandoned, but the part that causes her shoulders to relax is a vibrant yellow and purple flag turned sideways over the Patchwork Bar . It’s a confirmation that her sister and Blake had made it out without issue.
The officer writhes over her shoulder, muffled screams of protest just barely able to be made out by her mask and the muted explosions. “We’re almost there Ms. Schnee, sorry again.”
Her escape pod is just around the corner, between Patchwork and Rosewick , and she makes it without much trouble. It’s not a large ship, designed for escape, not travel, but she’d customized the inside with supplies including a bed. She drops the officer to the plush bed with a huff and rushes to the controls. The pod is gearing up to eject when the field over the station explodes into shards of light, fractured and broken. The force sends Ruby to the ground and the metal of the station creaks with the force of the explosion. She stumbles forward slamming her fist down on the ‘launch’ button the instant another attack hits the station directly.
As the pod sputters forward, Ruby tries not to think about the people who couldn’t get to safety. She tries not to watch what she knows are people as they rocket into space without protective gear. She’s seen the horror before, witnessed the death that the massive ship above them brings with its call.
The station erupts into an explosion of metal and memories. The escape pod is rocketed out of its dock and towards the enormous ship causing the destruction. The impact sends Ruby back to the ground as she looks on in horror. Her home, everything she’s known and loved for the last twenty-three years, is gone. The only things left, stored in the escape pod as they drift out into space.
Horror dawns again as the pod’s sensors detect the enemy ship’s weaponry locking onto their only escape from the wreckage, and Ruby has to make a split-second decision. Their escape pod isn’t designed for space travel, but it has a single warp boost designed to get them to another outpost if need be. The explosion and subsequent impact may have damaged the drive, but it could at least get them outside the danger zone, and to some sort of safety.
With a deep breath, Ruby moves. She designates the coordinates to the nearest cruiser station, somewhere close to the Atlas System, and waits. If she activates the warp drive now, they’ll be able to follow. With the size of that ship, a small station of cruisers would be ground beef to whoever was in control. Instead, she waits till her pod’s detections state they’ve been locked onto, her heart thundering in her chest.
“What are you waiting for!?” The officer has managed to wriggle out of her cuffs and remove her mask. She stumbles off the bed and catches Ruby’s worried gaze.
The instant the weapons engage Ruby activates the drive, holding onto the disgruntled officer as their bodies are thrown by the force of the movement. Everything goes black. They can see stars, and the distortion of the ship as everything roars around them .
When the ship stops both women are thrown heels over head into the control panel knocking them both out.