An Aura of Hope: A RWBY Fan Fiction

The Cell

A/N: This part is somewhat graphic so please feel free to skip by it if you aren't comfortable with it.

Yang's ears were ringing. Her entire body felt weak. Except for her arms, which she couldn't feel at all. Something caught in her throat and she started coughing painfully. She wheezed in her breaths and felt the tears sting her eyes. She didn't know how long she'd been down here in the dark, but the strong scent that permeated the air told her that it had been quite a while. Pain gnawed at her gut. How long had it been since she had eaten? When she drifted out of consciousness, sometimes she would wake to find a light burning her eyes and a masked person holding a spoon in front of her face. They fed her a grayish goop that she wouldn't be caught dead eating if she weren't about to starve to death.

The chain on the wall holding her hands above her slid over to a bucket for her to do her business. The person that came to feed her also replaced the bucket. She cried more in one cycle here than she had in all of her life beforehand put together. She had woken up the first time in here completely naked. She had no idea what happened when she was unconscious in this state, but at least it made using the bucket easier.

What made her cry the most was when her hair would fall in her face and she could see the clumps of dirt and blood ground into it and she couldn't do anything about it. Luckily it only happened when they fed her and changed the bucket, or she would probably have gone over some sort of edge in her mind into insanity.

One time when she was awoken by the harsh light, she was confused because she thought they had just come to do their rounds. She hadn't even had to use the bucket yet. But the person she saw this time wasn't masked. A tall woman with beautiful chocolate-colored hair stood on the opposite side of the cell near the stairs. Yang recognized her as the woman that kidnapped her. She wasn't looking, but she seemed to know Yang had regained consciousness, because she said, "It's sad, really. I used to really like you. You and your lovely little sister. Do you know who I am?" As she asked, she turned toward Yang.

Yang tried to respond, but her rough throat wouldn't let her, so she just shook her head.

The woman looked hurt for the slightest amount of time, but the look was gone instantly. "Maybe this'll give you a hint." She pulled out a slip of paper and dropped it in front of Yang. It was a picture of a familiar person with bandages covering the top of her head and left eye and ear. She didn't seem to have any hair. She was smiling brightly, surrounded by children of middle school and elementary age, including a girl with big, wavy, blonde hair and another girl, smaller, hiding beneath a red hood.

Recognition struck Yang like a dagger. Her voice came out painful and hoarse, "Ms... Hathers?" She looked up at her former teacher from Signal in horror. The sweet, loving teacher that taught the kids about their auras and semblances is the one that put her through this living hell? Ms. Hathers? The one who acted like a mother to her and Ruby when their real mother had died? The one who had seemed to love all of the children like her own? Yang couldn't believe it, but when she looked closely, she knew that it was Ms. Hathers that was standing in front of her. What happened to the bandages? She had worn them for all of the time Yang had known her and wouldn't tell any of the kids what happened to her to make her wear them. She really was beautiful, and there was no sign of injury on her head. "Why?" Yang croaked.

"Yang, dearest, you wouldn't understand. You were one of the ones that helped take down my cousin Cinder, right? I can't forgive you for that. She was like a sister to me. She was the one that defended me from the bullies when we were kids, the one that beat up the boys that broke my heart in high school, the one who fought with me when I got that debilitating head injury that I was so famous for. You hurt her when she was trying to help the world. At first she was just trying to get the money for my operation, but she saw how corrupted the world was, living in the walled up cities to keep the world out, destroying it in the process. She realized that something had to be done, or we would kill the world. Why? Because of humanity's craving for Dust. Schnee was the worst. They polluted our world with their processing factories. That was Cinder's dream, to save the world from humanity. And now it's my dream. But I have another way to do it." She walked up the stairs and returned with a cat. "And you, Pretty-and-precious," she said, using the name she had called Yang back at Signal, "are going to help me get there."