Fractured Fairy Tales
I don't own RWBY or any of the fairy tales referenced within this Episode (The Pied Piper, The Snow Queen, Puss in Boots, and The Tinderbox). To those of you who are familiar with my Naruto Shot collection called the Nonsensical Gallery, this is the same thing, but for RWBY.
Weiss could hear the flute as she approached the clearing. It played a soft, intoxicating tune, which seemed almost too inviting. Slowly, she raised her eyepatch, allowing the eye that held the magic mirror shard to examine the clearing as she slowly began to get a closer look.
There, in the tree, sat the red-hooded girl from the first day, playing a red and black flute. That, however, was the least of the interesting parts of the situation. What had Weiss's attention was the crowd of Grimm that stood perfectly still as she played her tune, the creatures looking to Weiss's cursed eye like twisted and warped shadows, made up of countless sins. And then, without warning, the girl, Ruby, she recalled, leapt off the branch she was sitting upon, shoving the flute onto a similarly-colored rifle, which she then converted into a giant rifle before she began to tear through the Grimm with a disturbing speed and fluidity, occasionally vanishing in a stream of rose petals, the sound of large caliber bullets echoing through the air.
And yet the petals seemed wilted to Weiss's cursed eye, like whatever sins she was bearing were tainting the petals. Given the way the cursed mirror worked, she suspected that was exactly the case, and quickly replaced they eyepatch. Drawing Myrtenaster, she began to work to execute some of them, herself, moving with the grace and elegance that her sister had instilled in her since she was a little girl. When the beasts were dispatched, and Ruby was once again still, Weiss turned to look at her, only for her eye to lock onto Ruby's own.
"I guess we're partners, now," Ruby noted with a smile as she converted her scythe first into a rifle, then withdrew the flute, sliding the rifle behind her back into a holster.
"I suppose so," Weiss said primly, taking care to adjust her eyepatch to ensure that she didn't see what Ruby looked like to her other eye before she turned to walk towards the objective, "Try to not fall behind."
"That won't be a problem," Ruby said from where she was standing about a yard ahead of Weiss already, "I'm fast."
"Let's get a move on, then," Weiss said.
"What did you see?"
The question stopped Weiss dead in her tracks.
"Your eye," Ruby said, "The one under the patch. You see things through it, don't you? Something different than from how your good eye works."
"How can you tell?"
"Lucky guess," Ruby replied, "You keep it covered, but I saw it when I was going through the Grimm."
"Speaking of which," Weiss noted, "I've never seen anyone enchant the Grimm like that…"
"I'll tell you my secret if you tell me yours," Ruby replied with a shrug.
"When I was a young girl, there was an enchanted mirror in my family's house," Weiss explained as they walked onward "One day, it burst, and everyone assumed that the enchantment wore off, but it turned out that what happened was that the mirror's enchantment remained in a single shard. This shard was embedded in my eye, though, you may be surprised to know that the scar there has nothing to do with that. From that moment on, I could see the true ugliness in the world. I don't like it. So, eyepatch. What about you?"
"A magical flute player came into town," Ruby shrugged, "We were having a rat problem, he got rid of them with his flute. After the city council in Patch paid him, but before he left, I asked him to teach me how to do stuff like that. He agreed. He taught me how to do the magic, then I had to learn how to play the flute properly. After a while, I made my own songs, and have been playing ever since."
"And that translates to wilting roses how, exactly?"
"Everything has a price," Ruby shrugged, "Like he said to me when I asked, 'Everything has a fee. If they refuse to pay yours, take your fee some other way.' I'm pretty sure the magic taints people, somehow."
"That sounds unbelievable, but I have a shard of a magic mirror in my eye, so who am I to judge? Let's move."
Yang wasn't sure of what to make of the black-haired girl who had killed the last of the two Ursas that she'd been fighting.
"So, if you give me a fish after all of this is said and done, I will be the best possible partner you will ever have," she told her sincerely, "And, I will tell you a fact about my dark, mysterious backstory."
"What if I give you three lien, now?" Yang replied, "That should give you enough for fish."
"Sold," Blake replied. Once Yang passed her the money, she said, "Alright. From here on, I'll be the best possible partner you will ever have."
"And the dark, mysterious backstory?" Yang asked.
"I have a dark, mysterious backstory," she replied freely.
"Oh, I walked right into that one," Yang noted with a slight chuckle as she pulled out what looked like a steampunk lighter, "Mind if I call us a lift?"
"Feel free," Blake shrugged, "Don't know how that's going to do that, but whatever works for you."
"Let's see…" Yang mused, "Zwei would be too big to maneuver and Drei would be way too big."
Striking the tinderbox once, Yang grinned as a giant corgi, taller than an Ursa appeared.
"What the hell is that?" Blake asked.
"A corgi," Yang said, climbing up, then holding out a hand to Blake, "Come on."
"I'm not getting on that thing," Blake said adamantly.
"I'll buy you fresh salmon next time we go shopping if you get on."
"Sold," Blake replied, taking Yang's outstretched hand, "But if it bites me, I'll make your life a living hell."
"Deal," Yang smirked as she pulled Black onto the giant corgi, "Let's go, Ein."
"How did you even get this thing?" Blake asked.
"I fought a witch to the death," Yang replied. "I won."
"Fair enough," Blake shrugged, before holding on tight.
"You're not going to question it?"
"I was hired to be your partner," Blake replied, "Not to force you to talk if you don't want to."
"Fair enough," Yang shrugged.
It was later that the pair came across Ruby and Weiss, along with Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren, when they were all at the mercy of a Nevermore and a Death Stalker.
"Let's move!" Ruby called out, gesturing towards the ruins with her scythe, "We've just got to make it to the top of the cliffs! Yang, cover!"
"Well, here goes nothing," Yang nodded, taking out her tinderbox.
"I don't think an Ursa-sized dog is going to help here," Blake noted.
"I was actually going to use Zwei," Yang said, striking the tinderbox twice times, summoning a massive corgi that was about the size of the Death Stalker, which proceeded to leap onto the beast and use it as a springboard to leap up and drag down the Nevermore.
As this happened, Blake glanced at the knight in Yang's sister's hand and the rook in her own, before glancing at the knight in the blond boy's hand.
The giant corgi battled the Nevermore, pushing it towards the ruins at the cliff's edge, while the rest of them fought the Death Stalker as best they could, following the battle even as they battled the giant scorpion.
"Change of plans! Yang, call him back!" Ruby suddenly called out, "We'll take the Nevermore! You four take the Death Stalker!"
Pocketing the knight she'd taken, Blake moved away from Jaune's group and drew Gambol Shroud, joining up with her partner and her partner's sister.
"On my mark," Ruby said as the colossal beast flew towards them, "Weiss, find a weakness! Blake, Yang, cover fire!"
Sighing, Weiss removed her eyepatch and observed the twisted abomination that now barely resembled a bird to her. "The wings repaired themselves, but the eyes are still damaged from the fight with the giant dog!"
"Got it!" Ruby said, unscrewing her flute from Crescent Rose's rifle form, "Blake, Yang, bring it my way!"
"What?!" Blake asked in shock.
"Just do it!" Ruby ordered. Blake glanced at Yang, who simply nodded in agreement.
As they directed the beast by shooting at its possible paths, save straight ahead, Ruby began to play that intoxicating tune. With her eyepatch still up, Weiss could almost see the music notes boring into the Grimm, causing it to slow down, as if under a trance, before it collapsed to the ground on the pathway they were all standing on, its weight causing the stone to shift.
"Weiss, hold it down!" Ruby said, before returning to playing her haunting tune.
In response, Weiss used ice glyphs to pin down the tail, followed by the shoulders of the wings, and the mouth, for good measure. Once it was pinned, Ruby stopped playing, though the creature's trance had yet to break.
"Yang, Blake, the eyes!" she ordered.
Understanding what she wanted, Yang sped forward on Ember Cecilia and struck the eyes with several punches, firing round after round until the eyes on her side of the beast were of no more use to the creature. Blake, in turn, was practically a shadow as she used her blades to dispatch the remaining eyes. As she flipped away, the creature came to its senses, struggling to break free as Ruby reattached the flute and converted Crescent Rose to its scythe form.
"Get on," Ruby ordered, leaping onto the creature's back. Not fully sure why, the others found themselves complying. "Hold on tight," Ruby ordered, before shooting the restraints. Once that had happened, the Nevermore soared into the air, clearly trying to get them off of it as it flew, but Ruby held the blade of Crescent Rose to its throat, causing it to fly up to get away from the pain she was inflicting upon it. Realizing what she was doing, Blake went to the tail and fired at the side, causing the Nevermore to turn towards the cliff as it rose to just above the cliff's height, moving forward as it did so.
When the head and shoulders were just a few feet above the clifftop, Ruby said, "Jump!"
Grabbing Blake and Weiss, Yang rushed to the head and leapt off, while Ruby swung Crescent rose around so that it was hanging on the back of the Nevermore's neck as she clung to the handle. Smirking to the trio, Ruby loaded a clip of Gravity Dust rounds and pulled the trigger, landing on her feet while the head separated from the Grimm's body.
"Looks like it lost its head," Yang chuckled.
"Well, at least it's over," Weiss said, setting her eyepatch back into place.
"Finally: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long, through quick thinking and quick hands, you have all arrived with the Knight piece," Ozpin said, glancing at Blake in a manner that told her that he knew what she had done, "You are now Team RWBY, led by Ruby Rose."
Once the pair had left the stage, Ozpin turned to Glynda and said, "This team should prove interesting, to say the least."