A/N- Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen! This chapter was meant to come out a week ago, sorry for the wait, I was quite busy and it was also due to procrastination. I have a shout out to my first reviewer, Sanguis . Anima! Thanks for the review! I also want to thank everyone who reviewed, liked, and favourited! Now let's get to the chapter!
Chapter 2- Lunch with Team GRNE
Beacon Cafeteria
As lunchtime rolled around, students flooded into the cafeteria of Beacon. Fortunately, Team RWBY had already found tables, seen that there were few seats scattered here and there across the cafeteria.
Ruby was mindlessly poking at her food and was unusually quiet. 'Ugh... Mashed potatoes and salad again?'
There was talking among their table, also shared with Team JNPR. Nora was telling them of her adventurous, as well ridiculous, dreams once again. Yang was listening intently as she was gobbling down on her own tray of food. Blake was eating whilst reading her book and Weiss poked at her salad.
"- and then four Beowolves jumped out from the bushes! Ren ran up behind one and beheaded it!" Nora exclaimed as her eyes shined, full of adventure. "There were only two..." Ren corrected.
Ruby usually listened to these tales, but today she had other things on her mind.
"Ruby?" she didn't notice that Ben and his team had walked right up to her table. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Yang, sitting across from her, covering her mouth, attempting to cover up her smirk. Blake peeked up from her book.
Ruby only looked up at him. "Do you mind if my team and I sit here? You have some seats here at your table." Ben asked her, pointing at four seats.
Ruby didn't say anything as Ben plopped down onto the seat next to her, his tray smacking on the table. His other teammates also followed suit, but sat a few seats across from Ben, sitting with the other members and introducing themselves to them.
Yang was still covering up her smirk as Weiss was glaring in Yang's direction, Blake was stifling the small chuckle on her lips.
"Oh... umm..." Ruby didn't know what to say. What was she supposed to do? She didn't mind, but as flustered as Ruby was, the bloom that tainted her cheeks told otherwise. She stared down at her tray, looked most certainly interesting now.
"Pssh. Mashed potatoes again?" Ben frowned at his spoonful of the mushy stuff. "It doesn't even taste like it." Yang tried to strike up a conversation between the two, as Ruby awkwardly stared at his spoon of mashed potatoes. "Mhm. Ruby hates it too. Say, Ben, why haven't we heard of team GRNE before? We don't know much about your team." she said, completely ignoring the boy beside her dressed in purple that was lightly nudging her elbow, trying to get her attention.
Ben looked reluctant to talk, "Well, no one really knows us because we didn't exactly put down a Nevermore or a Death Stalker during initiation, ... until recently on a mission to a small village, we encountered a pack of three Ursa Majors." Ben sheepishly explained.
"Wow... That's amazing. Your team down three in one go! Those Ursas can pack a punch. I guess you can say that you got out almost bearly. Ba- dum, tss."
Blake almost spat out her food. Weiss covered a side of her face, trying to hide away.
"Um... thanks?" Ben looked uneasy. Ruby kicked Yang under the table. "Aw, come on! Can't a girl crack a joke?" Yang said as she rested her chin on her hand and went back to her previous interest of Nora's dream.
"Your sister is pretty funny," Ben chuckled as he ate his spoon of mushy goop of mashed potatoes.
Ruby only nodded and poked her lunch again.
Ruby had not said much, Ben knew that Ruby was a very talkative type of person, that added to her quirky personality.
He didn't know what was wrong, Ruby had not spoke a word since he had sat down. Only a few nods here and there. There was something really off.
"Um... You okay, Ruby? You haven't said anything." Ruby's only looked up. "Sorry, I'm just... thinking." Ruby looked back at her tray.
She hadn't been in contact with her friends at all, she almost felt guilty for not sending back letters to the gang back at Signal for almost a week, she was busy after all. What was she supposed to say? She hadn't spoken to any of them in person ever since she left.
"Thinking about what?" Yang asked innocently as she chimed in. Ruby scoffed, "Nothing that you're thinking about." Yang waved her hand at her and turned back to the table.
"Is something wrong? Are you not feeling well?" Ben said as he ate a spoon of peas. "You haven't touched your food - though I can understand that. This food is disgusting!" Ruby shook her head. "I'm just not hungry. I usually am, but my stomach feels kinda weird."
As the table continued their eating (or most of them), a girl with jade-green hair bounded next to their table.
She stopped next to Ben and gave him a squeezing hug. Ruby shifted away as Ben lightly leaned against her from the force of the hug.
"Hi, Jade. What're you doing here? You have a table with your friends, now shoo. Don't bother me." Ben tried to wave her off after she stood back up." Who's she? Your girlfriend?" Jade whispered in Ben's ear. She pointed at Ruby and she tilted her head in confusion.
"No! She's not my girlfriend! Leave me alone! Out!" whispered Ben furiously. "Go, go, go. Get out! Don't- guhhh! Get out!" Ben tried to push her off as she pushed him against Ruby. "Hi, Ruby! Are going out with my brother?" Ruby tried to open her mouth to speak, her cheeks tinted pink." I- uh,"
Jade stood up and puffed out her chest.
"If my idiot brother tries to hurt your feelings, I'll pound him to the ground with my fists!" she said as she punched her fist into her palm.
"I... Don't think that's necessary. We're not going ou-"
"Not yet, you aren't," Jade grinned.
"Alright, have a great rest of the day, Ben." and she skipped away.
Ben groaned.
He wanted to hide in a hole, disappearing from the sight of everyone. His sister always had to embarrass him.
Secretly, Ruby found it amusing.
Beacon School Grounds
After lunch, Team RWBY and JNPR had a walk in the school grounds. Ben tagged along, his team had returned to their dorms for some rest.
They had a few hours before the last class of the day started at around 6:00 pm. The lecture goes on for two hours, it's nice to go out on walks for fresh air before you're cooped up in a lecture hall again. Uniforms were also suffocating.
"Ouch, Cardin landed a heavy blow on my arm this morning during spar," Jaune inspected a forming bruise on his arm.
"Jaune, I don't think it's a good idea to be sparring with Cardin I don't understand why the instructor would even pair you up with a hooligan. I'll speak with the instructor. I'm sure he'll understand." Pyrrha tried to reach out to his arm for inspection. Jaune waved her hand away.
"I'm fine, Pyrrha. It's just a small bruise." Pyrrha sighed and walked on. "You know, Jaune. If Cardin tries to bully you, come to us. We'll take care of him." Yang grinned. This time Jaune sighed.
Ruby and Ben had their own conversation. Ben had brought up the topic of weapons when he showed her his ax-shotgun hybrid of a weapon.
The topic of weapons always made Ruby giddy with excitement.
"That. Is. An. Awesome. Weapon!" Ruby stared at it. "My weapon is not as cool as yours. I'm not as good as crafting as you are," Ruby said.
"What?! You've got a scythe sniper-rifle thing! How's that not cool?" Ben waved his arms at Ruby's contracted scythe on her back.
"I'm not good at crafting weapons. How are you so good? You make it look so easy,"
Ruby looked at Ben, his face downcast."My father was a skilled weapon smith." he quietly said. Ruby turned her head away,she felt guilty. She shouldn't have even brought that subject up in the first place.
Ben's father was a local woodsman and a weapon smith at their village. His mother was a game hunter (not hunter hunter, like an animal hunter) that specialized with the bow.
Unfortunately at a young age of nine, Ben lost both his parents in a Beowolf attack on his village that had been destroyed. His aunt Dorothy had rescued both Ben and his sister, Jade. They were raised by his aunt until they were both old enough to be enrolled in Signal to become hunters and huntresses.
It was something that Ben did not like to talk about. He thought what happened in his past was meant to be forgotten.
Ruby changed the subject."What do you call you ax?" Ben blinked up at her. "Ascia."
She nodded. "I've never really seen you fight, we were never in the same classes. I only knew you because your aunt knew my uncle, Qrow." Ben didn't say anything. Now Ruby was the talkative one and Ben was silent.
"Uh... How did your team kill the Ursa Majors? It must've been hard."
"I killed one with the help of my friend Evan Orson, you know, the guy dressed in dark purple, scraggly brown hair, he was sitting next to your sister during lunch. We took it on from both sides, he distracted it and I beheaded it."
"Evan is your partner?" Ben nodded in response. "Oh, that's probably why everyone was talking about your team."
When Ruby looked behind she no longer saw team RWBY or JNPR She quickly snapped her neck back forward. Ben had not taken notice at all.
This was bad, very bad. Yang purposely lead the two teams away as Ben and her talked on. Their conversation had taken the awkward turn and Ruby was to focused on trying to fix it and didn't notice when the teams had left. Ruby concluded this herself, Yang was trying to set her up with Ben!
Ben looked to Ruby and laughed. Her eyebrows were knit and she looked so troubled, he thought she looked constipated.
"H-Huh? What are you laughing at?" Ruby was shocked and embarrassed at the same time. Did he know what she was thinking? One minute he was sulking, the next he was laughing for some odd reason.
Ben took a breath of air trying to calm himself down before speaking. "I just thought that you looked constipated. Heh heh."
Ruby bursted into laughing. "Wait! What?! I don't-" and Ben bursted laughing again.
"You're weird when you're too quiet," Ruby said after they had their laugh.
"Ah, sorry. Just... thinking." Ruby could tell that he wanted to drop the subject.
They walked on for a few more minutes. They stopped next to a bench but they didn't sit down. Ben turned to face her.
"You know, we have a lot more time before class starts. I want to show you this cool place I found last week." he dragged her by the sleeve and got her to follow him. The path they were following went a long way.
"Where are we going?" Ruby followed after him instead of being dragged along. It seemed like they were circling around the large structure of Beacon Academy and walking towards the back of the school.
"So, there's this huge meadow-field place in the back of Beacon and it's so peaceful there. It's just that we have to take this long way around the building to get there. In the middle of the meadow, there's this hill and there's a gigantic Oak tree planted on top," he waved his arms to exaggerate. "It's the biggest Oak you'll ever see!"
Ruby looked at his bullet-proof vest over his green sweater, and saw on his right chest that there was a green leaf, it was his insignia. She guessed that he loved nature based on how he looked so excited to show her the humongous tree that he spoke of and also on how he dressed. The boy was practically dressed from head to toe in green, except for his snowy camouflage pants of course.
"Here, we're almost there," he picked up his pace and jogged along the path he was leading her. When they slowed to a stop, all she saw was a small field and some Pine trees. "The meadow is just behind this curtain of trees, it's cool 'cus it's hidden from view. We could even come here at the end of the day and hang out more often. It has this nice scent of fresh air."
When they brushed past the Pine trees, Ruby saw the most magnificent view she had ever seen since she arrived at Beacon. It was a large meadow with a hill and, true to his word, the largest Oak tree she's ever seen.
The meadow was lightly dimmed and the skies were orange as the sun was setting slowly.
"Wow... This is so awesome," Ruby looked all around her, taking in the view. The setting was so calm and peaceful. Maybe it was a great place to rest and hang out.
Then she noticed it.
All scattered across the meadow, were rose bushes.
A/N- OHHH! Finally some plot progression! This chapter took longer to write than expected and I changed a lot of detail here and there, for example the scene when Ben was intended to be all joyful, but then it turned all depressing.
I'm sorry that this took longer to update, but I made it up for another extra 900 to 1000 words. PFFFT. Anyway, thanks for reading. Make sure to like, review, or favourite. I'll see you next chapter with more plot progression!
Oh and I forgot to add in chapter one that RWBY does not belong to me obviously, belongs to Monty Oum.
Tell me in the reviews if you guys want me to flesh out Ben's backstory more, or include his team mates more in the story so you readers can have a visual of what they're like. Thanks for reading and for all the views, byyee!
