"Weiss! Hold still!" Ruby exclaimed cautiously as she steadied her scroll in the other's direction.
The heiress looked up from her book, back perched across a bundle of frilly pillows on her bed, and asked in her neutral-curious tone, "Ruby, what are you doing?"
The heiress' partner grinned under her hood as she hung upside down from her bunk, carefully aiming her scroll right at Weiss.
"Aaannnddd… GOTCHA!"
"Got what?" Weiss' brow furrowed. Shifting gears to neutral-curious-annoyed. "Are you taking my picture without my permission again?"
"No, no, no!" Ruby stammered in both explanation and exclamation as she suddenly slipped off her bunk. A thud and a fountain of rose petals erupted from the foot of Weiss' bed.
Weiss leaned over the edge with a cocked eyebrow.
"Well… actually yes." Ruby mumbled as she lied on the carpet, seeing stars and dogs roll around her head. "But I caught a Pikachu right on top of your head so I had to take a picture of it too."
"You caught a what on top of me?" Weiss has had enough.
So much for her rare book reading time she had on the weekend. She pushed her novel, one of Blake's she had borrowed, to the side and slipped off her bed, letting her bare feet down onto the carpet and kneeling down to the still dazed Ruby Rose. She picked up Ruby's phone to see what she was on about.
As she studied the snapped photo on the scroll's screen, she saw it was a picture of her, peacefully minding her own business, and what appeared to be resting on top of her head was a little yellow… animal? A fat mouse? With ridiculously big red cheeks?
She figured it was some sort of new app Ruby was messing with, but her curiosity was getting to her as it sometimes did.
Weiss pressed the scroll's screen closely to its owner's face. "What is this supposed to be?"
Ruby could only smile innocently. "Oh, it's a Pikachu. You know, the coolest Pokémon ever."
"What is a Pokémon supposed to be? All I see is a weird little thing sitting on my head in this picture."
Ruby gasped sharply. She shot up from her spot on the floor to sit up straight and press her face closely to Weiss'.
"You don't know what Pokémon are? Didn't you ever play the games or watch the cartoons as a kid?" The little rose asked in disbelief.
Weiss stood up and crossed her arms, stuck her chin away and said, "A Schnee doesn't concern herself with such trivial things. We spend every hour of everyday perfecting our skills."
"But weren't you just reading one of Blake's books?" Ruby commented.
Weiss looked in the other direction. "A Schnee also takes a break every once in a while." She blushed a little.
"Well, maybe you could try catching some Pokémon on your breaks too!" Ruby exclaimed as she tried to regain her scroll from the other. Weiss allowed her to reclaim it after Ruby nearly crawled on top of her to reach it.
"I should be enjoying my reading time." Weiss shot back.
"C'mon, just look at them all!" Ruby dialed a few keys into her scrolls to pull up all of the Pokémon she's caught so far. "See! I caught most of these just today in the courtyard and cafeteria."
Weiss had to endure Ruby's long explanation of what Pokémon were and what the new app called 'Pokémon GO!' does. Apparently, according to Ruby's long winded explanation, people walk around with their scrolls and catch Pokémon, animal-like monsters with elemental types and abilities, in the real world using augmented reality. The players, or 'trainers' as she insists on calling herself, train and trade these Pokémon with each other on top of making them battle.
Weiss heaved a sighed. "It all sounds stupid."
"No it's not!" Ruby puffed out her cheeks. "It's my childhood! Yang got me hooked when I was five years old and I've been a Pokémon trainer ever since!"
She seemed serious, Weiss noticed. "All right, fine. To each their own." She relented, not wanting to actually upset the girl that slept above her every night. "You have fun with training those things, I want to get back to reading now. And no more pictures of me with those things okay?"
"Okay…" Ruby pouted, arms pressed behind her back and putting on her best mope face.
Weiss rolled her eyes. Drat! "No, Ruby Rose, I don't want to play with you right now."
"But Weiss…" Ruby used her cuteness on Weiss.
The other was taken aback by the sad little rose petal girl in front of her. It's super effective!
"Ruby, I want to read right now. So please, leave me be." Weiss tried to use Protect.
"Oh, okay… I'll just… go play somewhere else then…" Small tears formed in her eyes. Ruby used Brick Break. Critical Hit!
"Oh…" Weiss started, Ruby perked up. "Fine! I'll play with you. Just for a moment."
Gotcha! "Really?" Ruby asked all innocent like. "Yay! Okay, first you'll need to get the app on your scroll. Don't worry about it, it's free. But you're rich so that wouldn't have mattered anyways right?"
"Right." Weiss rolled her eyes in defeat as she pulled on her boots. Ruby was already downloading the Pokémon GO app onto her phone, without her permission!
"Oh look, there's a Eevee nearby! Try catching it." Ruby said as she pointed at the map on Weiss' scroll.
"I know what I'm doing, dolt!" Weiss shot back. Ruby had basically been a backseat gamer and walked Weiss through the tutorials, leaving little for Weiss to do. They were now strolling through the courtyards in front of Beacon, which Ruby said had 'Poké Stops everywhere.'
A little cream colored creature, sorry a 'Pokémon', popped onto her screen and made a growl noise.
"Oh, oh, there it is! Catch it! Catch it!" Ruby hopped up and down like a jackhammer on caffeine.
"Alright already, you dolt!" Weiss hissed to her partner. She tapped the screen and the augmented reality kicked in, showing the Pokémon known as Eevee standing in front of her on the white stone walkway.
Weiss had to admit, the game made the little creature seem like it really was there… and really cute. She rolled her eyes at the thought of this actually being fun, but she proceeded anyways, not wanting to suffer another Ruby-Rose-guilt-trip attack again.
Just like in the tutorial, she placed her finger on the Pokéball and tossed it at the little Eevee as it roamed around in augmented reality. The ball tapped the Eevee right on the head, the word's 'Nice' appearing near it on the screen, and then the little fur ball got sucked in. One wiggle… two wiggle… three wiggle… Snap! The word 'Gotcha' played across the screen.
"Good catch Weiss!"
The heiress shrugged smugly. "A Schnee always does everything to perfection."
Victory music played from the scroll as the newly caught Eevee's stats rolled down the screen.
"It's pretty weak now, but the more Eevee's you catch the more you can level it up and eventually evolve it." Ruby explained without being asked. "Oh, and you can give all of your Pokémon awesome nicknames too."
"I got it." Weiss said, while studying the little Eevee. It was cute, she admitted. It reacted every time she tapped it on the screen, moving around and making cute little noises that sounded like no animal she's ever heard of. It was… amusing to her. In a sense.
As a child, living in the shadow of a family name and title, she had no time for such diversions. Even as a little girl, she had to be an adult. It was expected of her to be the heiress she was groomed to be, despite her wishes… If only as a child she had more time for such things like what Ruby is so passionate about...
"Soooooo?"
Ruby's sudden interjection snapped Weiss out of her gloomy thoughts. "So what?"
"So, how'd you like it? Pretty neat, huh?" Ruby perked her eyebrows up, hoping for positive feedback.
Weiss sighed, and allowed a small smirk to peek through. "It was trivial, but entertaining I suppose."
"Oh yeah?" Ruby grinned. She whipped out her own scroll. "I know all the best spots around Beacon. We can team up and take over all the Gyms around here. First, we should get you leveled up and then we can try taking back the library's gym from team JNPR. After that, we can-"
"Ruby," Weiss interrupted. "You're getting ahead of yourself. That sounds like a lot of work for just a game." Her words turned out to be a little harsher than they needed to be.
Ruby let her glee slowly drain. "Sorry about that." She pushed a twig with her foot along the ground, keeping her eyes down. "To some, it can feel like more than a game…" She sighed heavily. "I'm sorry for taking you away from your reading, I just thought you'd enjoy it like I do. I'll leave you alone now, I can do some catching on my own."
It wasn't with a pout or a cry, not with childish begging or pressuring, but with… somber, very somber and deep words. Weiss felt like she just witnessed something from Ruby she couldn't describe. Was it really just a game to her?
Ruby turned to leave but Weiss caught her by the shoulder, surprising the both of them.
"Hold on, you dolt. I didn't say I wasn't done playing."
Ruby slowly perked up. "Really?"
"Well, I...:" Weiss searched for an answer. "I didn't say I didn't enjoy it or anything." It's true, somehow catching the Eevee with a perfect throw did make her feel a small amount of satisfaction. "But…" She paused. Weiss looked down at the Eevee for the answer she was looking for, and then suddenly found it. "You told me this Eevee is supposed to evolve, yes?"
Ruby nodded.
"Well, if it doesn't take forever, we can play together until I can get it to do that."
A warm little smile pushed up the little red hooded girl's cheeks. "A Schnee does everything to perfection, right?"
Weiss almost busted out a laugh but managed to restrain it to a respectable chuckle. "Yes, Ruby Rose, we Schnee do like to be perfect it our endeavors. Whatever they may be."
The heiress let her partner take her by the hand and lead her towards one of their favorite Poké Stops across the courtyard.
Joy was brimming from Ruby, Weiss can practically feel it flow into her through their interlocked hands.
As she was led on, Weiss looked down to her scroll to see her one lone Pokémon hanging around on her screen, looking as cute and cheerful as ever, very much like one Ruby Rose. They both had those kind of eyes that you could never say no to.
A thought struck her mind, leaving her to smile. She tapped the name of the Eevee and typed in a new nickname.
'Ruby'
And confirm. The Eevee Ruby seemed happy about its new name and bounced around on the screen, much like the real person it's named after.
"Hmph, you dolt…." She unconsciously blurted out.
"What's that Weiss?"
"N-n-nothing!" She stammered and quickly hid her scroll. "I was just, uh, wondering if there were any more Eevee's in the area."
Ruby giggled. "Totally, lots of them! They like to hang around where we're going."
She nodded back, sighing in relief.
Whatever it was, Weiss knew, Ruby had a reason to be so connected with a little thing such as Pokémon. The reason likely went back to her childhood, Weiss suspected. She wanted to know why her partner had these feelings for Pokémon. She had to know…
A/N: Part 2? Ask and you shall receive. If I do this though, make sure to bring some tissues.
P.S. Team Valor, Mystic, or Instinct?