"You said you needed me on the ground?"
Weiss asked as soon as she was beside her partner and leader again.
"Right! So here's the plan." Ruby was quick on her feet to give orders. "Oscar with Maria and our local bird Uncle Qrow will distract Shoe Lady from the air. Me, Ren, and Nora, will distract her by land."
She turns to the last two members of their group and she looks too excited for someone who's about to face off with an empowered racist gremlin in the largest glorified shoe mecha.
"Then Jaune will stay here to power Weiss up so she can summon a huge gigantic knight and have a HUGE-GANTIC ROBOT FIIIIIGHT!"
At least that explains the misplaced enthusiasm.
Weiss shouldn't be surprised that her leader came up with such a crazy if not ridiculous plan. What she is surprised about is the surrounding approval the plan seems to be getting. Everyone looks to be on board with the plan, well everyone except one crucial person.
"Ruby, you can't be serious right now." All of the tension from her jump had suddenly left her and now she's just left with exasperation. "And 'huge-gantic' isn't even a word."
"It is when Ruby can't legally say huge as f—"
"I don't think that's her main problem, Nora." Ren cuts her off with his hand on his girlfriend's mouth.
"Mmm! Mmph!" Nora mumbles at first until Ren finally releases her. "Then what is her problem?"
"I just think that having two giants fight is unnecessary not to mention I feel that you may have... another agenda in mind behind this fight."
"OBJECTION!"
Nora shouts and pounds her hammer on the ground like a giant gavel as if she was both the prosecution and the judge. That much should say as to how unfair this suddenly pseudo-trial was.
"Some of y'all have never seen a huge-gantic boss fight before and it shows!"
Weiss ignores whatever poor accent that was and asks the important question, "And you all have?"
"Oh, yeah definitely. Lots of times," Jaune says and there's a chorus of nods from the group. Even Qrow who has not opted to participate in the plan was nodding along. The only exceptions were Maria and she spoke her accord on the intercom, and Oscar whom in his defense, he was raised in a farm.
More importantly, what does that say about Weiss who was a huntress in training and yet she still had the same non-existent number of encounters with giant Grimm as a clueless farmboy?
"When did this even happen?" She asks, still in disbelief. "And how come I never saw?"
"That's because you never stuck around for them," Ruby points out with the aim of a true marksman. It's a direct hit to her pride. It would have been fatal too if it weren't the case that Weiss had that in excess.
"Excuse me?"
"We always invite you whenever we go on hunts and stuff and sometimes you even go with us. But the boss raids tend to happen late into the night when there's a special bonus hour. You always say no because you wanted to 'study' or 'sleep'."
"Weakling." Nora snickers from the side.
"She had no idea on what she was missing out on," Maria adds in her own patronizing comment.
"What's a boss raid?" Oscar murmurs from the far back.
But Ruby doesn't even hear a word from any of them as she continues and drags on a bit about the right type of armor and other such drivel. Weiss is pretty sure that she's gone off topic by the second sentence but it was too late to stop her rambling now.
Until finally she concludes with, "And that's only just the giant boss fights you missed out on. There're more other types of cool fights that you slept through! Don't say we never asked you!"
Given Ruby's tendency to babble, Weiss had a lot to unpack. Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately, she's had enough experience to decipher Ruby's ramblings at an acceptable rate. Which brings her to her own not as startling as it is disappointing conclusion.
"Ruby, you're talking about a videogame."
She may have blocked Cordovin's shot but Ruby's plan based on fictional rules finished her.
"Yeah, and?" Ruby cocks her head. "You need a ginormous character to beat a ginormous boss. It's basic videogame logic," She explains it as if it made all the sense in the world.
But that is that and this is the real world.
Weiss pinches the bridge of her nose hoping to stop the headache before any more nonsense worsens it. "Jaune, please tell Ruby here that this isn't a videogame."
"Me?" He startles and stammers, "Yeah, I guess. I mean, well this obviously isn't a videogame..."
That statement alone is a good start if it only weren't for the tone. It's not the 'Yes, Weiss is absolutely correct. Again. Why don't we listen to her more?' tone and quite frankly, those words would have been better. Something tells Weiss that whatever Jaune's follow up is wouldn't be so agreeable to her.
"But..." Jaune drags the word. In his defense, he at least winced under Weiss' withering glare. Oof, he felt that. Still, he had to say it, "But it is sound logic."
Applying fictional rules on real life? That surely must be sound.
"Do you even hear yourselves?" She shot them all judging looks. It was surprisingly most effective on Oscar who was honestly just civilian casualty as far as she knows.
"Well do you have any better ideas?" Ruby challenges her, meeting her glare with her own steely gaze.
That actually makes Weiss stop and think. She didn't think that far to be honest. She was so adamant on rejecting the plan that she hadn't considered of thinking up any alternatives. But now she had to and with every passing second she risked them the danger of Cordovin and the loss of her pride.
She had to present something.
"Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. Maybe we could handle this on our own... in our own size. Think about it. Despite the towering height of that monstrosity, its weaknesses aren't huge areas as well. They're most likely tiny areas that only people of our stature can reach."
"Tiny Ice Queen," Qrow coughs into his fist which Weiss ignores entirely.
"We can use our size to our advantage and with our numbers we could definitely outmaneuver one giant enemy."
Perfect. That definitely sounds like a compelling plan.
Except for the fact that no one else seems to think so. The empty stares are a bit disheartening she must admit. The silence is making her insecure enough and with every passing disquieting second, her solid plan didn't sound like it could even hold water. In her paranoid state of mind, she accidentally blurts out,
"...At least that's what I got from this movie I watched."
And of all the people to answer her, it just had to be Ruby and she just had to do it with her most serious face.
"Weiss, this isn't a movie."
It was the single most frustrating moment of her life.
"And how is a videogame any better?!"
So maybe her plan isn't that much credible because of its source. But why was only her plan the questionable one? This is prejudice!
"Anyways, since we don't have any better plan—"
"Hey!"
"We're sticking with the original awesome plan."
"It's not that awesome..." She grumbles underneath her breath. She doesn't even hide it knowing her opinion will be ignored anyways.
With Ruby right beside her, it was only natural to assume that she had heard it. What Weiss didn't expect was for Ruby to giggle.
Oh, and the peck.
She was kissed on the cheek so fast that she thought she might have imagined it if only her eyes didn't catch the telltale petals fluttering in the air.
No one else seems to have noticed though.
"Can you summon your knight the size of Cordovin's big metal shoe?" Ruby asks coyly, pretending with such convincing innocence that she didn't just pull a move on Weiss.
"Uhh," Weiss gapes, still processing. She doesn't remember her lips moving after since she was still fixated on a different pair of lips. "I mean... it's doable... I suppose."
"Great! Then it's settled! We're doing 'Plan Biggest Baddest Most Awesome Robot Fight Ever'!"
As if this plan couldn't get any more ridiculous, that plan name is just a mouthful.
"You will do it, right, Weiss?" Ruby pleads to her with shining puppy dog eyes and matching pout. She even whines like an adorable puppy.
And Weiss wasn't a monster who kicks puppies.
"Ugh, fine!" She finally gives up, throwing her arms and all her care in the air.
"Yay! You're the best!" Ruby rejoices and throws her own arms around her partner in a celebratory hug.
It's unnecessary but Weiss welcomes it all the same with only mild complaining.
"But if anything goes wrong, you're taking responsibility!"
"That's what she said!" Nora hollers.
"Not the time and place, Nora!" Jaune scolds her with a red face.
"Oh, c'mon! You always say that every time! If not now then when ever?!" She shouts even louder.
"Maybe we should save the rest for after the battle." Ren does his best to hold back his energetic girlfriend.
"No, let's hear her out. She's just calling it as she sees it!" Maria cackles through the intercom.
"I don't get it," Oscar comments as he watches the chaos unfold.
"Maybe when you're older, kid." Qrow shrugs.
Now Weiss didn't have time to unpack all... that. And Ruby holding her in her arms certainly wasn't helping. She did manage to pull away enough to not be smothered although she didn't pull away all the way.
She tries not to read too much into the wagging eyebrows that Nora sends her nor the sympathetic look from Ren.
"Oh! But what you said did make me start thinking!" Ruby suddenly brings up.
"Really? Which part?" Weiss asks almost hopeful.
"Us being tiny!"
Ruby pats her partner on the head, emphasizing their height differences despite Weiss' consistent scowl whenever that gets brought up.
"Imagine how much awesome it would be if your giant knight had punched the giant robot... while I was riding the punching hand!"
"Why on Remnant would you even do that?"
"To look awesome and kick a—"
"Preach, girl!" Nora interrupts with a cheer. But her joy shortly gets cut off once she realizes her mistake. "Aww, darn it. I spoke too soon!"
"Maybe we just weren't meant to hear it." Ren just pats her on the shoulder.
"I don't think the world is ready yet to hear Ruby say what I think she was going to say," Jaune comments.
"What? Assailant?"
Everyone turns their head to the outspoken leader.
"What's wrong with that? Aren't we supposed to do that?"
"To look awesome and kick... assailant," Weiss repeats slowly.
"Yeah?" She tilts her head, confused.
"Nevermind. The world is ready to hear Ruby say that. Carry on," Jaune amends.
"Double darn it!" Nora cries out. "I still cut her off two letters too soon!"
Well that certainly went... somewhere. That's too far off from the original tangent. What were they even talking about anymore?
"Oh! And while I'm at it, I could probably swing Crescent Rose like an extension of your knight's gauntlet! Like a gauntlet blade!"
Right. They were talking about another one of Ruby's crazy schemes, this one more personally perilous than the last.
"I..." Weiss normally would have argued on that but she knew how futile that is. So she gives up with a sigh. "I'll just go summon the knight right now before you get any crazier ideas."
She probably would think up of more along the way but that's a problem for future Weiss to damage control later.
"This gonna be the best HUGE-GANTIC fight ever!"
"That's still not a word!"
"You can fight me over it after we beat the racist shoe lady!"
Looks like they're going to have a mecha fight after all.
And this time, it's not just a videogame.
A/N: In all awesomeness the original fight scene was amazing. But this was a fun blooper to write! Hope you had fun with this!
If you're into Weiss and/or Ruby (and white rose!) you might enjoy my series fic 'Thank Me Later'