When Ruby left her uncle Qrow's dingy old shop out in the middle of nowhere, she'd honestly expected to find a decent job within the month. With four years of secondary schooling and two more of hands-on training from one of Vale's most highly respected robotics technicians, she'd felt certain that job offers would fall into her lap the moment she set foot in a technological paradise like Vale City.
And yet, half a year later, she's on her fifth deadbeat job, working the graveyard shift at a local diner like someone who didn't graduate high school at fifteen years old. She graduated top of her class from the prestigious Atlas National Robotics Academy, and now she's serving coffee to drifters at the butt crack of dawn.
Ruby's never felt like more of a loser.
It's the sociability thing, she thinks. She's never been good with people in ways she can't quite pin down. Maybe she's too exuberant. Maybe people just don't care for a girl who's too busy futzing about with machines to pay them any mind. She gets all up and tangled in gears and wires and pistons, and who has time for people when there's so much to do?
It was never too much of a bother at school. People are expected to care mostly about machines there. So what if she didn't go out to parties or hang with people outside of study groups? All it meant back then was that she was focused and determined to succeed. Her teachers had loved that.
And her uncle had adored her, as much as someone as cold and distant as him could, anyways. He'd had nothing for praise for her work ethic and drive, had always encouraged her to stay late and experiment, to improve on his designs whenever she could. She never felt out of place there.
Now she's always too much or too little, too open or too unsociable, too focused or too distractible, never 'suited for the work environment'. She suspects standards vary on a personal level, but if that's the case, how is anyone supposed to know how to act? How's she supposed to tailor her behavior if no one will tell her the rules? Or worse, if there are no rules to tell of?
She's never been so bereft of purpose before. She goes through her days with an almost mechanical rhythm; one two, wake up, three four, work out, five six, job hunting, seven eight, wait tables, nine ten, fall asleep. The days pass by in a monochrome blur, even fear and disappointment faded grey with repetition. Some days she finds it hard to force herself out of bed.
Today's one of those days.
Ruby rolls onto her belly and throws a glance at the clock, hastily mounted on her wall with chewing gum and prayers. 11:23 PM. She's going to be late for work. She groans and buries her face in her pillow. She's accomplished all of nothing today and it looks like that trend will continue if she doesn't get her butt up and haul herself to work. The walk'll give her time to think of an excuse. Or at the very least practice her groveling.
Her boss is gonna kill her.
Ruby topples out of bed and drags herself to the kitchen, grabbing what looks to be the cleanest pair of pants on her bedroom floor along the way. She performs a very dignified series of hops and squawks stuffing herself into them, dinging shoulders and shins against various doorframes and assorted debris.
She mutters neutered curses to herself as she fumbles for a light switch.
"Aha," she breathes. "Got you you little-"
She pauses, bleary. Light's already on. She flicks the switch off, then on again.
Hmm.
Either she left the light on all darn day, in which case her electric bill's just gone through the roof, or.
Or.
She fumbles for some sort of weapon, coming up with a rolled up magazine, and braces her shoulder against the wall.
"Who's there?" She shouts, scanning the room for missing or broken property. Not that she'd notice, given the clutter.
There's a clatter from the kitchen. Ruby swallows heavily and tenses, raising her makeshift weapon above her head.
There's a flash of gold and orange and then-
"Ruby! You're awake!"
"Yang?!"
Yang is roughly six feet of gorgeous, muscular Amazon with a lion's mane of waist-length, bleached-blonde hair, and she looks so very out of place in Ruby's grimy little apartment. As big as she is, she emits an aura of someone twice her size, the sheer volume of her confidence and charisma feeling almost like a physical presence in such a small space.
She wears cut-off jean shorts and a yellow vest that show off the broadness of her shoulders and the contrasting thinness of her waist. She looks wild and powerful and womanly in a way that Ruby can't help but envy.
She is also, Ruby is dismayed to note, still several inches taller than her, even after her frankly miraculous late-teens growth spurt. She uses her height advantage to roll Ruby into a playful headlock with accompanying noogie.
"Ow, Yang!" Ruby grabs for Yang's hands and aims a few kicks at her shins. Yang guffaws and rolls them both through the doorway and into Ruby's kitchen. They clatter against a folding table and bounce into the refrigerator with an angry screech.
Ruby wrenches herself free of Yang's grasp, only to be pulled back by a pair of strong arms around her stomach.
"Oh no you don't!" Yang growls. She wriggles her fingers against the underside of Ruby's ribs and Ruby howls with laughter.
The struggle drags on for several more seconds before Ruby goes limp, panting. Yang hums in satisfaction and plasters herself against Ruby's back.
"Missed you, lil sis." She mutters into Ruby's hair. Ruby snorts and pats at Yang's hands where they rest on her stomach.
"Yeah, yeah. Missed you too, sappy."
And she has, for all Yang is a big, flashy, woman-shaped force of destruction. She's always a shock to the system, but in a way that leaves Ruby reverberating with good feelings for days afterwards. She's just a bitter pill to swallow, sometimes.
Ruby wishes she could say she's shocked to find her in her apartment at this time of night, but honestly? Yang comes and goes as she pleases. It'd take a strong will and an even stronger door to keep her from crashing here. At least Yang's not blackout drunk this time. She thinks. Ruby doesn't smell vomit at least, and that's really the best she can expect to get.
She's come home to see her sister beaten black and blue, face down in a puddle of her own vomit, and she is glad for any meeting not tainted with that kind of terror.
True to form, Yang does not bring up their previous meetings, choosing instead to putter about Ruby's kitchen, pulling glasses and plates from cupboards. She offers Ruby a plate of slightly burnt grilled cheese and a glass of tap water with a face-splitting grin.
Ruby quashes the desire to return it and instead forces her lips into a tight line.
"You were cooking something, on my stove, in my apartment, while I was asleep. And did not know you were here." Ruby sighs, takes the plate from her sister, and places it on the counter. "Yang, you can stay here whenever you want, you know that. You don't even have to warn me. But I'd really appreciate if you took the time to tell me you're here. You scared me half to death, Yang!"
Yang screws up her lips and puffs out her cheeks. "Wruby!"
"Yang."
"Wruuuuby!"
"Yang, come on. I'm not messing around here! I'm late for work, my boss's gonna kill me, I don't have time for this!"
Yang holds her hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. You just looked tired s'all. I didn't want to wake you." She grabs a grilled cheese and hands it to her, a peace offering. "Eat. You must be starved."
"Yang, I-"
"Eat. And listen. You're not going to work today." Ruby scowls and tears into the sandwich with a little more force than is strictly necessary, but does not interrupt. "That job is killing you. You're tired all the time, you spend all day moping about, you can't even work up the enthusiasm to bore me with your nerd babble anymore. It's weird and wrong and it needs to stop. So," Yang raises one finger imperiously, "I'm gonna stop it."
Ruby finishes her second sandwich and swipes a third, her gaze fixed somewhere above and to the left of Yang.
"That's... A bit of an exaggeration, isn't it? And even if it weren't, not having a job would kill me long before this one would."
"Eehhn, wrong! Not having a job would leave you with no excuse not to take my money!"
"The fact that I don't know where it comes from is excuse enough for me."
Yang sighs, long suffering. "Just come with me."
"What? I just said-"
"And I just said you're not going to work. I'm taking you somewhere fun. You're going to have fun with your big sister. You'll laugh, you'll cry, we'll bond over a shared emotional experience, etcetera, etcetera." Yang jangles her keys in front of Ruby's face. "Let's get to going!"
Ruby pushes Yang's hand back and leans against the counter. She wants to go with her. She really does. It's been so long since she's done something just for its own sake, and whatever you can say about Yang, she does know how to have fun. Ruby's never failed to enjoy an evening with her sister before. Her natural charisma can lighten even the most dour of moods.
But still.
Yang jangles more insistently and raises her eyebrow in challenge.
Well. It's not like she's not already in trouble.
"Alright. Just let me get changed."
Yang whoops. "Alright! I'll be downstairs. By the yellow motorcycle. You can't miss it. See ya in a few!"
Ruby grins helplessly at her sister's retreating back.
"Yeah..."
The city spreads out before them like a cross section of a mountain, concentric rings of technological growth spreading out from the docks like layers of sediment.
Ruby's apartment building squats like a boxy grey toad on the mountainous southern edge of the city, all the sleek plastic-compounds and metal. It's a starkly modern section of Vale, every iota of innovation dedicated to practicality with none of the grace or flair Ruby adores about engineering.
She supposes it does her no good to complain. It's good, cheap housing, something a city of this size desperately needs.
Yang's motorcycle roars as they blaze away from the neat, gridded roadways near Ruby's apartment to the narrow, winding passages of the city proper.
Modern constructions sprout like bright, angled flowers among the low brown toadstools of their elders. Ruby spots a crumbling old faunus temple resting beside an office building nearly seven times its height. A bright splash of green park slices through the narrow ally between a skyscraper and a sprawling, glass and steel conference building.
Yang steers them down increasingly narrow and crumbling pathways, more neglected than ancient. Ruby's seen absolutely pristine churches that have stood for hundreds of years at the city's heart. These places are more like atrophied limbs, the crumbling remains of failed ventures left to rot where they lay.
They stop in front of a small flat roofed bar, low-slung in a way that suggests that most of the structure is underground. Ruby gingerly dismounts the motorcycle and glances about, nervous. Flickering neon illuminates a man stumbling drunkenly down a narrow ally. A washed out hologram of a topless woman is stuck in a three second loop, bending low, opening her bright red mouth, and flickering back upright with a jolt of static.
Ruby takes a deep breath and smells salt and brine overlaying vomit and cheap perfume.
Yang claps a hand on her shoulder and grins. Ruby smiles weakly back.
"You know, there are decent bars near my apartment. If you wanted to drink."
"Hmm, not ones that have what this offers," Yang says with a wink.
Ruby blanches.
"Yang, if this is a drug thing, or, or, like a, a sex thing, then I am walking home, I swear to god."
Yang snorts. "Please, little sister. I know you better than that." She wraps an arm around Ruby's shoulders and steers her into the building.
"Have a little faith in me."
The bar's about as seedy inside as it looks from the streets. She breathes in through her nose, immediately regretting the flood of sour vomit and body oder that floods her senses. Ruby leans into her sister's touch, feeling a bit like a child thrown headfirst into the deep end.
Yang rubs soothing circles onto Ruby's shoulder. She flashes something Ruby can't see at the bartender. Cash, or maybe an ID? Ruby feels light headed. She wonders if this is what getting a contact high is like, or if it's just what she expects to feel like surrounded by suspicious smelling smoke and strangers at midnight in some dingy little tavern she's never been to before. She fumbles for Yang's hand on her shoulder and clumsily intertwines their fingers.
Yang smiles down at her, gentle and slightly apologetic. "It'll be all worth it soon," she whispers.
They descend a set of creaky wooden stairs and into what looks like a root cellar. Pallets of beers and casks of assorted alcohols make for a winding maze that Yang traverses with practiced ease. Yang halts them in front of a metal door, more modern than Ruby'd expect from a place like this. There's a card reader mounted to the left and a steadily blinking light of a security camera above.
Yang swipes a card and the door opens with a only the barest hint of a creak. It's well maintained, more so than anything else in this dump.
It opens to a room about the size of a closet, walls lined with some sort of insulating padding. There's a panel on one side of the door with all but three buttons removed. Yang ushers Ruby inside and presses the topmost button. The door closes with a faint whoosh.
Yang hums to herself, pleased, and checks her watch. "We're a bit late, but that's probably for the best! They'll have gotten past all the boring bits, anyways."
Ruby starts to reply but pauses, shaken. Literally. The lift's smooth decent should be almost imperceptible. Was almost imperceptible. She presses her ear to the walls of the lift and feels her teeth practically vibrate. She jolts back.
"Yang..?"
The lift jolts and quakes in short bursts. Ruby can hear a dull roar from outside. Yang reaches out to steady her.
The lift shudders to a halt. Yang motions for Ruby to cover her ears.
The doors open up to a solid wall of sound, a cacophony of human voices and the screaming and groaning and clashing of metal. Noise and light hits Ruby like a punch to the head, and she stumbles backwards into Yang. Yang hauls her upright and grins madly, gesturing towards the chaotic mass in front of them.
"Welcome to Beacon!"
AN: Pardon the cliffhanger. When your first chapter gets to being 6k+ words and counting, one feels you might need to subdivide it a bit.