Ruby’s neck itched. Her legs itched. Her body felt wrong, which wasn’t something she had ever felt before. She had often heard of people feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. She had honestly thought that was just a phrase people used. A long-winded way of saying they were uncomfortable. And maybe that was true.

But at the moment, Ruby didn’t feel like her skin fit properly. It was too tight for her bones. Or maybe too loose. It wasn’t easy to tell.

It was a recent development.

Ruby wasn’t entirely sure what had happened in the last several hours. She suspected several things, but just had no way of confirming anything. It had all been so… chaotic.

It started with the hospital. Leaving it, specifically. Ruby ran out of the building alongside Dyna and her wounded friend. Except, once outside, Dyna started shouting at her. Yelling at her to shoot. Ruby hadn’t known why Dyna was telling her to shoot. Dyna was not a deceitful person. Neither was she violent. Ruby felt she had a decent buildup of her personality in mind. Between that and the utter urgency in her voice, Ruby had pulled the trigger.

In retrospect, that had been the absolute worst decision she could have made from a rational point of view. Something Emerald and Walter would both have yelled at her for. Dyna could have been mentally compromised. Ruby certainly had been mentally compromised given that she couldn’t remember why she had her gun out at all. Opening fire in a situation like that could have seen her shooting down innocents. No matter what people thought of her, no matter how violent they thought she was, Ruby would never shoot random people. Not without good reason.

Looking around her current situation, Ruby adopted a deep scowl.

Ruby wasn’t sure where she was at the moment. Outside a building of some sort. A school, maybe—Ruby had never attended mundane school. The institute saw to her education. There were letters on the wall and over the main doors, but despite being literate, Ruby couldn’t make out what they were trying to say. Or if they were in any of the three languages she could speak.

She hovered off the ground, suspended in the middle of the air by some kind of harness. It was like parachuting, except instead of falling for a few minutes, she had been ‘falling’ for hours now. While she wasn’t moving at the moment, her ‘fall’ had been horizontal, along roads, up until the last hour or so.

Thus, Ruby discovered that it was possible for her body to become uncomfortable from something other than fatal injuries.

In retro-retrospect, she shouldn’t have hesitated.

Shooting the Hatman before he appeared and grabbed hold of her gun might have prevented this situation.

Glaring at the unmoving form of the Hatman, seemingly suspended in the air in a similar manner to Ruby, she wished she hadn’t dropped her gun when he grabbed her. It might not do any good. She was fairly certain that one of her shots had hit him, but it hadn’t slowed him down any as he chased her across the town. But now? Floating in the air in front of her?

She would shoot him until her magazine ran empty without hesitation.

Ruby had a knife. A few, actually, hidden around her person. She had considered throwing one or all of them at him. But they were potentially her only real weapons at the moment. And here in this… place, she might need them.

In this strange world.

It looked mostly normal, aside from her being unable to read anything, but every so often, Ruby would spot something simply wrong. Maybe it was a mirror reflecting people and cars that she couldn’t see. Maybe it was a storefront window pane that looked into a desert landscape.

The lighting was strange as well. It was odd, like everything was constantly lit. Despite there being no light source—not even a sun or moon—she could see. And yet, it was like everything had a cloak of shadows draped over it.

The worst of all were the things out there. Actual living things hiding in the shimmering shadows of this world that seemed to be in a perpetual twilight. None had approached her, not even after whatever method of transportation she had been put into slowed to a stop. But she still saw them. Silhouettes creeping about beyond the edges of buildings. Slight movements in the corners of her eyes.

Ruby wasn’t sure what they were. Humans? Probably not. More entities? She didn’t know enough. That was the domain of the doctors and scientists.

Ruby looked down at the Hatman’s feet, narrowing her eyes.

Something was hovering off the ground. From having been in the same spot, Ruby figured it was resting on the same thing that had been moving her around. A vehicle of some sort. But this thing was certainly not human.

More like something had heard about the idea of what a human was and tried to recreate it. Its face was blank, eyes dark holes leading into its skull. The thin line it had for a mouth stretched too far in either direction, yet didn’t look as if it could actually open. It was a painterly brush stroke across the surface of a featureless mask. Its arms and body, wispy shadows as if they were hidden behind a pane of frosted glass, shuddered and twitched every so often. It didn’t have hands or feet, as far as Ruby could tell. Just limbs that tapered off into nothing.

Ruby didn’t like it. It was probably one of the things she kept seeing.

But every time it shuddered and twitched, it… faded. It wasn’t a quick process, but if it continued, it would entirely disappear.

Hopefully.

The Hatman had caused enough problems. Walter didn’t even know what to do with it and Walter knew more than anyone. Having another thing like it running around?

Not good for anyone. Least of all Ruby.

Ruby liked simple things. Things that stopped moving when you put bullets into them. These entities…

They could go die.

Ruby let out a lip-rumbling sigh. Although the appearance of the Hatman and later the unknown entity had startled her and made her worry that she had been found, there didn’t seem to be any danger. If she had to guess, she was inside some Carroll Institute machine, one that had been driving around looking for the Hatman. And they obviously found him and figured out how to kill him, for he wasn’t moving.

That left her… bored.

A strange version of the world with strange things moving around should have kept her tense, but at this point, she would already have been jumped if something was going to attack. That left her wondering how long she would be sitting around like this.

From the way she pivoted when she kicked her legs, she could tell that she was anchored to something right around her shoulders. There was nothing there as far as she could see, but her eyes clearly couldn’t see everything that was going on.

She should probably be doing something.

Investigating or exploring. Something. Anything that might help. She had already failed in her objectives. Maybe Dyna succeeded on her own. Maybe not. But Ruby hadn’t been a part of it. Whether or not the mission was a failure was up in the air. Whether or not Ruby was a failure was more certain. She had been upset over it at first. Her first real solo assignment—or at least senior assignment—and she went and flubbed it up.

Hung up and left with nothing to do but think had drained most of the anger and left her feeling… well, drained. Ruby didn’t feel physical exhaustion the same way other people did. But mental exhaustion?

The least she could do would be to bring back some information. Observations of this strange world she now found herself in and maybe even of the figures moving in the shadows and in the corners of her eyes. Maybe a little intel for the docs to pick over would lessen the magnitude of her failure.

With the Hatman and his strange abilities seemingly nullified, she couldn’t even say that there was obvious danger about.

Ruby kicked her legs forward with a bit more force than an idle swing would give. She could feel something hooked up around her shoulders. It was a strange sensation in that she couldn’t actually see it. Or feel it, for that matter. Stretching her arm back, it passed through everything with little resistance. It took massively complex illusions to make someone think their hands weren’t smacking into something solid. Or an artifact.

Ruby swung again, trying to figure out if she was just hooked on something or actually fastened and secured. The fact that she could swing likely meant the former. The harness had buckles on it. She could technically remove it at any time. It wasn’t likely to be something the institute wanted.

Of course, they probably wouldn’t want her running around either.

Ruby wondered what they would prefer. Knowledge about this strange place or a still test subject for whatever they were likely to try. Assuming they were trying to bring her back.

Actually, if they were going to do that, they probably would have taken her back to the institute proper. There were facilities there that this random parking lot couldn’t possibly have.

The part of the harness around her waist hit something solid. Ruby couldn’t see what, but knocking into it again gave her something to use for leverage. She used it to swing forward again, further than before. And promptly started flailing her arms as she fell through the air.

Ruby landed directly on top of the non-human floating prone in the air. She tensed, immediately regretting not being more careful, only to relax somewhat as the being didn’t move aside from the initial jostling any body would make after being body slammed. Not wanting to push it, however, Ruby immediately set to rolling off the body. Then she kept rolling over some surface her legs dangled through that she couldn’t see until she reached the edge. She fell a few feet, hitting the actual ground.

Something grabbed at her harness almost immediately. Hands, presumably trying to help her up. Ruby tried to swat them away, but not being able to actually touch whatever it was left her swatting at thin air.

At least they mostly stopped once Ruby was properly standing. Of course, they stopped trying to pick her up and started trying to lead her around. Ruby undid one of the more obvious buckles at her chest, just as a threat. Keep trying to shove her around and she would… well, it probably wasn’t a good idea to just disappear, but the implications were there.

The pushing promptly stopped, though not necessarily because of Ruby’s threat.

The faceless figure sat up. Its head twisted. The eyeless gaps stared straight at Ruby before turning their attention to something that Ruby couldn’t see.

It didn’t get a chance to do anything else. A nauseating wave roiled the air, coming from somewhere right next to where Ruby was.

Ruby’s artifact flared, keeping her steady on her feet and physically sound against the strange effect. The figure didn’t react nearly as well. It shuddered, twisted, and promptly collapsed back down.

But this time, it didn’t collapse down onto nothingness. There was something there. A solid surface. In the rippling air, more appeared. Glass formed into existence around the Hatman, equipment appeared in the air on the opposite wall, and a terminal flickered into being at the far end. The terminal didn’t stay for long, disappearing in a similar flicker, but the rest stuck around.

Ruby, as soon as she was sure that there wouldn’t be a repeat of whatever happened, slowly approached what was obviously the rear of some kind of truck. Testing, she placed her hand down on the surface.

It was solid.

Whatever happened brought part of the vehicle into view for Ruby.

A similar thing had happened earlier. When she had first been tackled with the harness, a nauseating, roiling wave passed over her that time too. She had been almost positive that Dyna had popped into existence for just a moment before vanishing again.

Some natural phenomena? Not likely. That same wave had almost certainly sent the Hatman to the ground earlier. A weapon.

The entirety of the truck had not come into her slice of the world, which gave Ruby a clear view of the area beyond the truck bed.

Those things she saw were still out there. Some had been in the line of fire of that thing. Where most tried their best to avoid her direct gaze, only flighting about in the corners of her vision, she clearly spotted two lying on the ground. Ruby started to move around the parts of the truck she could see, only for something to grab hold of her harness and keep her from moving forward.

Which might have been a good thing.

A moment of silence passed. Barely long enough for Ruby to tug against whatever invisible hand had stopped her.

A sharp, screeching cry, one of the few sounds Ruby had heard since encountering the Hatman, echoed through the air.

In an instant, dozens of the shadowy figures collapsed upon the two downed beings in the distance. Ripping and tearing, the figures attacked the two. It lasted a blink of the eye. In moments, the figures swept out, moving like no human could, merging again with the shadows at the edge of her vision.

There was nothing left of the two fallen things. Not even scraps of cloth or… whatever they were made from.

Ruby took a slow step backward. Nothing had so far approached her. Not as she flew through the streets attached to what she now knew was a truck. Not now after whatever happened had happened. She could heal from most every injury. In the interest of not murdering her, the Carroll Institute hadn’t tried to figure out the full limits of her ability, but Ruby, being the owner of the ability, had a feeling it would take another artifact to kill her. Something that negatively interacted with her artifact.

Even still, she did not want to get torn apart like that.

Exploration, even in the name of atoning for failing her mission, did not sound nearly as appealing as it had a few minutes ago.

And one of those things was here in front of her. On the truck bed. Probably able to be seen by whoever had used that weapon.

Why hadn’t the creatures attacked it? Because of Ruby’s presence?

That was the only thing she could think of.

Was it going to attack?

She eyed it, unsure of its capabilities or intentions.

“██by.”

Ruby twisted, turning to an empty space beside the truck.

“Ruby? ███ █ou he██ me?”

“Dyna?”

“███ sure ██ ██ working…”

“Hold pl████,” another voice said, this one coming from up in the truck. “Okay. T█y now.”

“Ruby? Can you █ear me?”

“Yes,” Ruby said, moving closer to where she thought the voice was coming from. “Dyna?”

“I don’t hear her.”

“That disruptor fire may have █amaged my equipment. Please refrain ████ doing so again.”

“That was Maple, not me.” Dyna sounded angry.

“█████ heard. ███ everything is for ███.”

“Ruby, if you ca█ hear me, don’t move. Actually, no. If ███ can hear me, can you hop up and down three times?”

Ruby promptly complied.

“Good. Good. She ███d me. Ado is trying ████thing to get you normal.”

Ruby, despite herself, let out a small sigh of relief. Someone was trying to get her back. Dyna and… Ado? Wasn’t that the Tartarus goon?

Ruby shook her head. At the moment, she didn’t really care.

Maybe it was just her imagination, but it felt like the shadows were inching closer toward her.

“Tell that…” Ruby started, only to trail off. If she couldn’t be heard, she was wasting her breath. Instead, she just bounced up and down three times. Looking around, watching the shadows move in the distance, Ruby quietly added, “Please hurry.”