"What's Summer gotten herself into this time?" Taiyang muttered, maneuvering his way through the gathered crowd of students as he made his way over to a familiar pair of siblings.
"Hey, Tai!" Qrow shouted over the commotion, "Over here! Summer challenged one of the upperclassmen to a race!"
"A race?" Tai was incredulous. Summer was easily the fastest girl in the grade, if not the whole school. Who would be stupid enough to challenge her of all people to a race? Finally, he broke through the throng of students, nearly tripping as he finally caught sight of the unfortunate challenger.
He definitely looked the part of a runner. The man was all leg, skinny as a rail, and that shock of green hair had a certain windblown look to it that you typically only got by sticking your head out the window of a speeding car. Taiyang vaguely remembered he was a third year; Barry or something.
Turning to his own team, STRQ's number two appraised his own team. Summer was jogging in place as the twins gave her their own special brand of pep talk.
"This chump's got no chance; Lookit 'im! He'll be eating your dust right out of the gate."
"He's weak. Don't even think about losing."
"How'd this even happen?" Taiyang finally asked. Qrow turned around, grabbing him by the shoulder and pointing at a boy who seemed to be giving the challenger a pep talk of his own. Blonde haired, dressed in red, and, well, large, the two boys were practically polar opposites.
"Y'see that guy right there?" Qrow pointed at the boy, "He wouldn't. Shut. Up. So now we're going to make him shut up."
"Is… Did Summer even get a choice in this?"
"It's alright Tai," Summer chimed in, "I'm always up for a little friendly competition."
"Are you ready, Branwen? I won't let such an insult to my partner's pride go so easily!" The blonde boy from earlier bellowed.
"In your dreams, Peter!" Qrow shouted back, "Summer here could kick all your asses with one hand tied behind her back!"
"I suppose there's only one way to find out." The green haired one finally said, holding out his hand as the two competitors faced off.
"I suppose we will," Summer shook his hand. "May the best man win."
As the two took their positions, Qrow walked out between them, evidently the referee for this little competition. After a taking a few moments to calm down the chattering crowd of students, Qrow began to address them.
"Alright! The race is one lap around the campus! Anything goes!" He turned to the racers. "On your mark, get set, GO!"
The two took off like a shot, running so fast that Qrow was nearly bowled over as they passed him.
Taiyang had to admit, the boy was giving Summer a run for her money. In a straight up sprint, he had the advantage over her, though whether that was related to his semblance or he was just that fast was debateable. Summer, to her credit, made up the difference with her own semblance; rapidly jumping forward several feet at a time and passing the boy, before his own speed brought him back to front. The two rapidly leapfrogged like that for most of the race, up until the final stretch.
Rounding the final corner, the two were neck and neck, Summer huffing and puffing to try to keep pace with the boy, who seemed barely worse for wear himself. With one last, desperate burst of speed, Summer jumped a couple feet ahead of him, just enough that it was still anyone's game.
And then she tripped.
Looking back on it later, Taiyang wasn't sure exactly what caused it. Maybe the concrete path they were running on looked smoother than it actually was. Maybe someone had decided to meddle in the race. Taiyang knew of one student specifically with a sort of telekinesis as a semblance. Maybe Summer had just tripped over her own feet. She wasn't exactly the most… coordinated, sometimes.
Nevertheless, with a yelp of surprise, Summer went down, doing a rather spectacular faceplant as she fell. The other boy, moving too fast to react in time, tripped over her own flailing body, and the two began rolling in a tangled ball towards the finish line, only coming to a stop once they hit the wall of the nearest building with an audible 'thunk'.
Ignoring the various murmurs of "Who won?" and "A tie?", Taiyang sprinted over to the pair, only slowing down at the sound giggling. Summer's giggling.
"Oh geez, I'm so sorry, that was my fault," She finally managed to get out, in between wheezy gasps of air and muffled giggles."
"Not at all, it was a good race, Miss…" The boy trailed off, smiling as stood up and brushed off his pants.
"Summer," she said, brushing off her own skirt, "Summer Rose."
"Bartholomew Oobleck," He replied, holding out a hand which Summer took gratefully, "I suppose we'll have to have this competition of ours at a later time. Perhaps you'd like to meet up later, so we can, discuss who won?" Summer's eyes widened for a moment.
"That sounds nice," she responded, smirking, "I know a great restaurant in Vale we can meet at, Mister Oobleck."
"Well, until we meet again, Miss Rose." Oobleck bowed comically.
"Until then," Summer giggled.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."
The voice of the minister faded out as Summer recalled the events leading up to today. After that fateful race, so many years ago, the two of them had started dating, and Bartholomew had shown himself to be a caring, kind young man, with a strong sense of justice. A couple years of dating later, and the two of them had finally graduated from Beacon, Summer having done so just a scant few months ago. Oobleck and his team had already graduated a couple years back, but the two of them still found time to go out from time to time in between missions and the many stresses of school. It was nearly a year ago when he had finally popped the question.
"Summer, I have a question for you," Oobleck suddenly spoke, with uncharacteristic seriousness for the moment. The two of them had been simply enjoying an evening together in the rare case where they both had free time. Summer was preparing for her fourth and final year at Beacon in a couple weeks, and Oobleck had returned from his team's latest mission, though not unscathed. Thankfully, Summer thought, it was nothing that wouldn't heal with a bit of time off, and so the pair had decided to head out for an evening together. After catching a movie, they had ended up at a nice Mistrali style restaurant.
The same one we went to on our first date, she noted idly.
"Sure, what's up, Bart?"
Summer might be one of two people who could get away with that nickname, the other being Oobleck's partner, Peter.
"Summer, I-" He paused, fidgeting slightly, "These past couple years with you have been amazing. There's never a dull moment with you, and I wouldn't want it any other way."
Summer leaned in, intrigued. Where was he going with this?
"And, I've been thinking about this for a while, but this last mission made me realize that I'll never know when my last chance will be, whenever it might be," He tossed something around in his hands, fidgeting but never breaking eye contact, "So I've decided."
He stood up from his chair, kneeling down, and suddenly everything clicked. Summer gasped.
"Summer Rose, will you marry me?"
That was a year ago. And now, here they were. With Peter as Oobleck's best man, and Raven as the Maid of Honor, (though not without some convincing), everything was shaping up to be a perfect day. The wedding itself had been organized in a local park in Vale. It was a popular spot for the pair when they were dating, and now it was the site of one of the most important events in their lives.
"Do you, Bartholomew Oobleck, take Summer Rose as your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, from this day forward?"
"I do."
"Do you, Summer Rose, take Bartholomew Oobleck as your lawfully wedded husband, to love and cherish, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, from this day forward?"
Summer smiled. It was the only thing she could think to do.
"I do."
"Then, by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
With that, the two lovers kissed, caring for nothing outside their own little world that consisted of nothing but each other.
Turning to face the crowd, Summer saw the collected faces of friends and family, including the remainder of both of their teams.
"Bart, promise you'll never leave me?"
"I wouldn't dream of it in a million years."
Man, I go dark for a few months, and this is what I come up with. I wouldn't call this an officially new story, because anything else I do for it probably will be in this little one-shot format like these were, but I figured I should at least throw out something to prove I'm not dead.
On that note, I'm declaring both of my other stories hiatused. Synthetic Souls might even be flat out canceled. I've been doing a lot of soul searching, and I'm just not entirely sure how cut out I am for a full long form type story like that at this point. Nothing definite either way, but don't expect anything soon.
Anyway, with that out of the way, this is just a silly little idea I had one day of something along the lines of "what if Ruby's semblance was even faster?" From there it grew into "How would that come about?" and "What would the implications of such a drastic change in canon be?"
I'm not even going to make any sort of promises regarding "upload schedules" or "minimum word counts" this time around. This gets updated whenever the hell I feel like. On the bright side, I can crank these shorter one shot type chapters out much faster. One idea I've been having is starting several different stories to jump between as my motivation and inspiration changes so that I can always have something to work on. The only problem is that means no reliable updates, and I know how that can be frustrating from a reader's standpoint.
Nevertheless, I'm starting to think that I work better with shorter one-shots and the like, so I think I'll be switching gears a bit as an experiment.
(Also, check me out on SpaceBattles. I've written a few things over there that I'm rather proud of for AceofAces' "Ghost of Razgriz" fic. The story's also posted on this site, though I don't think it's been updated recently, nor does it have any of the Omakes.)