Chapter Four: Steel Giant and Rose Girl
Goodwitch walked quietly as possible as she could. Her giant mechanical friend on the other hand wasn't nearly as subtle like her. They were walking through one of the many corridors in the student dormitory, it is there where the students of Beacon Academy rest and sleep from their troubles and worries of the day.
Despite the shifting gears, pumping pistons, and all other sorts of machine noise; Glynda was surprised to not even see a single door knob move. It was either everyone was a heavy sleeper, or had a very tiring day, but she didn't care and was instead grateful of such luck. They were making a good pace to reaching the engineering bay, there was only one hallway left until they can make good time once more.
Ruby couldn't quite sleep for the night and just resorted to borrowing Blake's books to pass the time until she felt tired. At first it was just due to the constant study crunch she did for one of her classes tomorrow, she hated math class a lot. Now it was just due to the caffeine running amok in her system and now she had to wait it out.
Ruby yawned as she turned to another page in one of Blake's more teen angst books, the stuff that she was reading either boring, drenched in romance, or depressing. At the moment, Ruby wished that something exciting would alleviate her boredom, even if it only lasted a few minutes until she became tired enough to go to bed.
Suddenly, she heard a faint noise coming from beyond her room's door. She looked at her teammates who were still sleeping with Blake making relatively little noise while Yang was snoring like a little cute pig. She giggled at the sight of her sister tossing and turning in bed, but she went back to the sound and moved out of her own comfy mattress and leaned her ear close to the door.
The noise was still faint, but she could definitely hear the sounds becoming louder as whoever was making them approached her team's door. As the sounds became louder, she could barely discern what the noises themselves were. They all sounded something that would come from some machine, or something else, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.
She remained quiet, listening closely from the door as the sounds grew even louder. She guessed that they were now at her door. She resisted the urge to peek through the door, not wanting to scare off or get detected by whoever might be behind it. As quick as it came, the noise began to die down as if it were just an echo.
When the noise was just barely audible to Ruby's ears, she took a risk and slowly opened the door just enough to poke her head out. She scanned the entire hallway, trying to look for anything that was out of the ordinary. Just barely, she managed to see just the shadow following whoever was walking away. What surprised her was the sheer size of the shadow that was disappearing.
She smiled. "Time to go out for a little walk…"
Garuda had finally managed to reach the engineering bay that Goodwitch kept on talking about to him ever since he had to separate from the others. It was big to say the least, if Garuda were to compare it to the school, he guessed that it was at least half the size of some of the buildings at the academy. There was nothing special about it, to him it looked like just some kind of warehouse or aircraft hangar in the days of old. Just a very big metal box with two gigantic doors.
"This is our engineering bay, although some of our more tech savvy staff members and students had taken it to call it 'The Pit Stop.' This place is, in essence, a motor pool of sorts where we store and repair any school owned vehicles that we have on campus."
Glynda then pointed towards a small set of doors that were right next to the hangar doors. As they approached the doors, Garuda had found that they were just big enough for him to fit through. He had to crouch a little to get inside, but he had successfully managed to not scrape off any of his paint, he felt good about that.
Glynda then flipped on a couple of switches next to the doors, the lights beginning to flicker but soon illuminating the whole entire inside of the building. He could see over a few of the flying vehicles that his other companions were on. Besides the airplanes, the inside was practically a workshop with nothing but workbenches and tools scattered across the room.
"It may look a bit messy in here, but this is the only suitable place that I could think of that would be able to house you. For now, at least. You don't have to worry about anyone coming here as students are forbidden from entering, and I'll inform the rest of the staff of your stay here later on. Enjoy the night and be ready for tomorrow, we will call you by the intercom."
Garuda began to walk throughout the room, looking at the Bull Sharks that were inactive and the assortment of gears and parts strewn about the tables. Glynda simply watched as the giant mechanical robot just seemed to...observe its surroundings. However, she could feel just a tiny sliver of an aura coming from within him.
Whoever Garuda was, he was a mysterious enigma to her. It wasn't everyday one could find a fully sentient robot, or was he really a robot in the first place? Glynda put the thought away for later, and exited on out through the door; leaving Garuda to his own devices.
Ruby didn't know whether she was supposed to be really scared or super excited as she Professor Goodwitch exit the engineering bay. She had just managed to catch up to her in the nick of time as she saw Professor Goodwitch put a big, walking robot in the engineering bay. Ruby had seen other kinds of androids and machines, but the one Professor Goodwitch was walking with was not like any other robot she's ever seen before.
It was pretty big, it was taller than any other person in the world; or even most androids on that matter. Not only that, but it looked like it was supposed to look somewhat human with just two bipedal legs and arms. It even had a small head with glowing red eyes.
Ruby was just itching to go inside and take a close look at the machine, and maybe tinker with it. On the other hand, she was quite nervous at the fact that Professor Goodwitch was escorting the thing, which probably meant it was highly important to the school. She was conflicted with the two ideas, but her curiosity had won out over her fears. One little peek couldn't hurt, right?
Ruby crept as silently as she could, trying to avoid making any noise whatsoever. After reaching the small doors, she checked her surroundings to make sure that no one else was nearby. Once she felt that it was safe to head on inside, she slowly opened the door with extreme caution. She squeezed in through the doors as she pulled them far enough to get inside quickly. With the doors fully shut behind her, she immediately went to go look for the big walking robot.
She ran head first into what felt like a wall of metal. She was knocked down onto her back, but she slowly began to recover from the ordeal. Once she was out of her daze, she steadily looked up to see the giant android towering over her.
The immediate atmosphere was drenched in silence and choking with tension. Ruby stared silently at the robot's red eyes while it did the same. Although, Ruby could have sworn it was just doing more than looking at her, it was as if she was being observed or even examined by it. Ruby looked away, trying to find come up with a quick way to escape, or in a more desperate and extremely worse decision, to destroy it.
The machine itself did not look like it was going to do anything, but Ruby thought it was only a matter of time before it would actually consider her a threat and destroy her since she did break into private property. Crescent Rose was still unformed behind her back, and if she was quick enough, she could try to blast her way out through the door or through the machine.
However, the risk of fighting the robot was very dangerous as she had no idea that the thing was capable of. Ruby briefly looked over the entire robot to find any weakness or fault in its designs. The longer she looked at it though, the less she could find any sort of weakness and she could barely feel the - impossible!
She could vaguely feel some kind of aura coming from within the robot. It seemed nonexistent, but the more she focused, the more she could feel the aura within the robot. It simply boggled her mind now that she just no only found a cool looking robot; but a cool looking robot that had an aura! It excited her in the heat of the moment, but as she thought about it, the imagination became worse.
Everyone knows about how aura is only found within living creatures, such as humans and faunus. But if Ruby could feel the aura of someone coming from a robot of all things, it scared her to think who would somehow put someone else's soul into a machine. Unfortunately, her train of thought was interrupted by the shadow of a big metallic hand rising over her.
Ruby instinctively reached for her Crescent Rose, but immediately stopped herself from transforming her weapon as she was quite surprised as to what the robot did next. It just pointed its finger right towards the door behind her while looking down at her. Ruby was frozen in both shock and surprise as the robot was motioning her to 'get out' of the engineering bay.
She put her weapon away, but she decided to see how far she can go with the robot in satisfying her curiosity. She started by looking at the robot, and then pointing at herself while having a confused expression. To her excitement, the robot nodded its head to convey its own intentions to Ruby, how wonderful!
Now fuelled by a wanton desire of curiosity like a small child, she began to take another step into her little plan. "So, can you actually understand me?" She said quietly, pointing at herself.
Again, the robot never ceased to amaze her as it responded by nodding its head. She was practically jumping up and down in hysteria. She was grinning like a mad man since she had found, in her own opinion, a gold mine of new things to learn and even socialize with!
As Ruby was acting like a little girl shot up in candy and sweets, Garuda was contemplating on who the hell she was. When she first came into the engineering bay quite suspiciously, Garuda confronted her which immediately turned into a silent stand off. At first, he thought he had scared the day lights out of her when the were just staring at each other awkwardly.
When he became tired of her presence, he pointed the little girl to the doors so that she could take the hint to leave. Instead, she started to point at herself like she didn't know and he had to confirm that she did have to leave. After that, she even asked him if he could understand her in which he nodded his head that the could.
In the aftermath of that, Garuda was stuck in the engineering bay with a little girl who just seemed to jump in place full of excitement without a care in the world. He thought of the little girl a crazy, most people would be scared to their wits end if they encountered an 8 ½ foot monster of machinery. This little girl who seemed to have gone insane was actually happy to meet him. If he had a mouth, it would be smiling right now.
However, his mind went back to business and he had realized that he had kick the little girl out of the engineering bay. He had no idea what amount of trouble he would be in if Goodwitch saw him with the girl, and he had no intention of finding out. With as much grace as his large robot body would allow him to, he grabbed Ruby by her hood and proceeded to carry her out of the door like a tiny cat.
Ruby yelped in surprise when Garuda did grab her by the hood, and proceeded to carry her out of the door. She was dropped on the ground with no ounce of subtlety, and it left her lower back in a little bit of pain. Ruby looked at Garuda again, this time though, she could feel something...less friendly coming from him.
She didn't want to go though, she had so many questions to ask and so much to do with him that she couldn't quite wait to just meet again. So Ruby did what any sane and normal little girl would do when faced with a large robotic machine with no emotions: she gave him the best 'Ultra Ruby Cutey Face!' she could muster.
No mortal Yang, or even emotionless Blake could stand against the unadulterated cuteness that was Ruby's begging face. It was only used in desperate situations though like when she wanted the last cookie from Yang, or even get anything else for her own whims. The Ultra Ruby Cutey Face seemed frail and harmless on the surface, but it was made through the cold and ruthless calculations of Ruby herself.
From intense studying of sad puppy eye pictures, and to even observing the crying of children; Ruby had managed to form the ultimate weapon in little sister cuteness warfare! No man, child, woman, or even machine could stop her when she threw her ace in the hole out!
Shockingly, Garuda just pointed his finger out towards the school, and then pointed at Ruby. Her heart cracked as she realized her ultimate weapon in adorableness was thwarted by a simple wave of a mechanical finger. Desperately, she stood up and looked straight back Garuda with determination plastered on her face.
"Before I go, can I meet with you again? I promise I won't be annoying or pestering like now but please, oh please, oh please can I meet you again?!" Ruby begged, this time with more groveling and less dignity.
Garuda was amused at Ruby's attempt to persuade him with her own puppy dog face, but seeing her grovel beneath him and crying tears was just slightly annoying him now. Seeing as he probably had no quick alternative to getting rid of her, he agreed to her by giving a thumbs up.
Ruby glanced up and immediately went from depressed to jovial as Garuda seemed to accept her wish and gave him a hug. Not wanting to overstay her welcome any longer, and that the caffeine was disappearing in her system quickly; Ruby quickly let go of him and sped off towards the dorm rooms while waving goodbye to Garuda.
Garuda waved back to Ruby, and looked at her until she he couldn't see her anymore. Looking at the sky, he quickly noticed the shattered moon that lit up the night. It was all strange to him, one day he's fighting government officials and the next he has to deal with a little kid on some weird world. In the end, he was glad to be alive, and in his experience, you couldn't really ask for more than a good life.
So Garuda walked back towards the engineering bay, from there he would rest as much as he could. For one of the rare moments in his life, he couldn't wait for the next day to come.