AN: Heyo Colors back with more crazy Ruby. Somehow I only just now discovered that Percy Jackson fanfiction exists. Man i loved those books as a kid. Were the first books that the school librarians recommended to me that were actually good. Alongside a book named... Peak i think that was about a kid climbing mount Everest.
Good stuff.
Blood Red: Chapter 4
I do not enjoy large groups of people.
Scratch that. I do not enjoy being in the same room as dozens of people, who are all sleeping quite noisily, when I am not allowed to chain the doors shut and paint the walls with their blood and warm my heart with the agonized screams of the dying.
So many hearts beating in close proximity. So, relaxed despite the stress they must be feeling from the impending challenges tomorrow will bring. Their vulnerable lungs breathing so slowly that you could be forgiven thinking some of them died in their sleep.
The pitiful tossing and turning of the most worried. So similar to the death rattles of a corpse still learning it is dead to give my body a happy tingle at the memories.
I want to kill them so much it hurts. My brain itches so much it's almost as if my blood has been replaced with gasoline and set alight. Every inch of my body burns and raves to begin the slaughter anew on these pathetic unsuspecting little creatures...
Shivers run up and down my spine. My legs twist and writhe against each other trying to shake out this overwhelming itch diving through my body.
I'm sure no one will miss a few meat-bags going missing, right? After all they have so many, who would notice if one or two or twenty-five vanished in a pink mist of blood splattering all over the room like some avant-garde painting.
I reach up and give the entrance to my sleeping bag, which I fully climbed inside, head and all, in a futile effort to keep the noises of the not-people out of my ears, a tug and poke my head out the hole and survey the room around me.
It's dark. Not so dark to get in the way of my aura enhanced vision, but enough that anyone not paying particular attention could miss all sorts of happenings in the room. All around me lay the barely moving forms of dozens of delicious morsels. Some laying sprawled on mats with blankets, others in the tight confines of sleeping bags.
It's almost as if they are wintersday gifts for me to unwrap!
Oh boy! This one has a sack of blood inside! Let's hang its entrails over our shoulders and dance around the campfire!
Red is such a... festive color.
LET'S PAINT THE WALLS RED! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! KYAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"Ruby" someone grips my shoulder tightly and gives me a shaking, "Ruby you there?"
I twist around still half in and half out of my bag to get a look at whoever was talking to me and managed to tie my limbs in a knot and fall face first onto the floor. I sputter and hiss angrily before righting myself and glaring at my grinning sister. Why must she always be so cheery when I am miserable? Can't she see that the pain of being around so many of these meat-bags is driving me up the wall?
Her grin only gets wider at my glare. Such a cruel sister I have.
"Good you aren't sleepwalking. When you started giggling like a perv I figured you were about to molest one of the sleeping boys or something."
My trail of thought derails and explodes in a burst of flames as that horrible thought invades my head like a possession grim. I clam my hand over my mouth instantly as my dinner tries to force itself back up my throat at the thought of doing... that with such disgusting trash.
And all the while, my dearest sister Yang is just laughing it up.
It takes me several gasping, choking minutes to force the bile and vomit back down my throat before I can focus on the object of my ire.
"Dang-it Yang! You know how much I hate that, I almost puked in my sleeping bag!" I whine like the innocent child I appear to be. It's definitely not going to be the last time Yang makes such uncouth jokes at my expense, but I can hope. For some reason she has it stuck in her head that if she keeps prodding and poking my "budding sexuality" will appear and I will begin acting like her.
Which as far as I can tell involves going up to anything with a pulse and dry humping it into submission like a dog.
I am the first to admit my knowledge of human courtship rituals is not the best.
Or existent at all.
I know how babies are made of course. A mother and father request one from the king of birds who sends a minion with one to their front door. Presumably they also defend the whelp from the Grimm until the new parents wake up and take it inside the house.
Although they might drop it down the chimney if you have one I guess.
Qrow told me it is more complicated than that, but refused to tell me any more since it wouldn't be useful information anyway.
Beyond obtaining of a child, my knowledge is limited to say the least.
I'm sure Yang's dry humping leads into some sort of sexual intercourse eventually, but based on my observations of her I have no clue how any one step leads into the others. It's like there is no rhyme or reason to the things! Sometimes she punches people in the face who flirt with her, other times she drags someone off to... copulate... after knowing them for only a few minutes!
How can people navigate such a maze if there are no rules!?
Especially the one time I went looking for her and caught her doing something strange with her mouth to one of the teachers at Signal. She told me not to tell anyone about it, and being the dutiful sister, I honored her request.
But needless to say it only confused me further. Until then I was positive that the only uses for those parts were between two members of opposing sexes! How Yang figured out how to do anything with another female I will never understand.
I guess I should just embrace my ignorance and be thankful none of my teachers wanted me to do such things with them.
Blegh. Think of better things Ruby. Best not to swallow down more vomit.
"I'm sorry Rubes, the look on your face each time is just too much!" My loving sister squeaks out past her chuckling before shoving her head into her own pillow and laughing uproariously.
At least she didn't belt out her mirth to the world. It would be a nuisance if she woke the entire room.
Although it would be so much better if she didn't once again...
GET IN THE WAY OF MY WONDERFUL NIGHT OF BLOOD AND DEATH! KILL! SLAUGHTER! BLEED THE PIGS AND SUCK THE MARROW FROM THEIR BONES!
Yang smacks me over the head again and I grab my head with a pained groan.
"Gads Yang the heck was that for?"
"You were giggling and drooling again. Are you sure you aren't finally going through puberty?"
I don't grace that with a response and just stick my tongue out at her indignantly.
"Will you two stop making so much noise, some of us are trying to sleep!" a vaguely familiar voice comes from above us.
Yang and I both raise our heads in unison to stare at the pale girl standing above us. Whoever she is, she has pure white hair that is tied up above her head, and looks like it was slept on because it's kind of going completely insane. Her face is scrunched up in an annoyed or perhaps constipated glare which does nothing to improve her over all annoying demeanor.
I do like her pajamas though.
"Who are you?" Yang asks. She must have been having the same thoughts as me. The pale girl does look familiar though, I wonder where I saw her before.
The mystery girl sputters comically at the confused look on my face for some reason and leans over with both hands on her hips.
Oh no. I upset her.
Somehow.
"Do you seriously not remember me?" the girl asks. She must think I am playing some sort of practical joke on her or something. She just stares at me while I look blankly at her before her face goes bright red and she starts yanking on her hair angrily.
That is not good for your hair. Root damage is bad.
"YOU BLEW US UP!"
Oh, it's her.
Huh.
I should use my faces this time to prevent confrontation!
My cheerful grin, that I am told makes my face quite adorable, appears on my face between one thought and the next and I do my best to blind the girl with radiant cheerfulness. This is one of the more useful ones that helps me out of a ton of situations. So many people lower their guards when they see childish hyperactive cheerfulness.
The girl only huffed in annoyance and stomped her foot.
Oh no. She must have been vaccinated against cuteness.
Time for my back up strategy.
"Yang, this is Weiss Schnee. She was the girl I told you about who was bullying me earlier."
My dear sisters' eyes went from a cheerful purple, to a rage filled red and she leapt to her feet to defend my honor! Go glorious warrior, defend the dignity of your younger sibling! Destroy the heathen that dares to insult your family!
Weiss tries to step away from my sister and her angry growling and flaming hair but Yang just grabs her by the scruff of the neck and drags her from the room.
Gads I am a genius.
What feels like an hour later my sister finally skips happily into the massive room and flops back down onto her sleeping bag with a satisfied smirk on her face. There are few things my dear sister enjoys more than a good fight, or in this case a pummeling and a serious talking too.
She is kind of similar to me in that regard, although she just does it to work out her anger issues while I do it to feel the soft caress of blood running across my skin.
It's a shame she cares about others. Hunting together would make for great sister bonding.
Soon after my sister, Weiss stumbles into the room looking noticeably more frazzled. Her hair, previously tied up, hangs look around her and is sticking up every which way crazily. Her movements are sluggish and when she makes it to her spot she falls down into her mat with a thud.
Seconds later I hear her breathing even out and she begins to snore softly.
If I didn't know any better, just based on her appearance I would think that instead of pummeling her Yang chose to instead-
No Ruby. Don't think about it. There has been enough vomit today.
I turn to my sister who is sprawled on her mattress basking in the afterglow of a good f- ... fight.
"Have fun sis?" I ask quietly, careful not to wake up the meat-bags.
She opens her eyes and blinks up at the ceiling as if she forgot I was there. "Oh yeah, that was great. Nothing quite like a good beating before bed to calm you down." She rolls over and rests her chin on her palm, "What about the other girl you mentioned, the one who distracted the white one? You see her around?"
I hadn't thought about her at all actually. The... erm... what did she look like again? She had a stupid bow or something in her hair, right? Shouldn't be too hard to pick up out of a crowd.
A quick scan of the room finds the girl almost immediately. Unlike most of the other students who are laying on the floor she is sitting in a chair reading by candlelight.
Who the frack reads by candle light?
That's literally a single lux.
Someone should have informed her that straining your eyes to read under less than ideal conditions can lead to long term adverse effects in your eyes.
At the very least she should invest in a clip on booklight.
Or just read on her scroll like the rest of the planet.
I point at the girl, "That's her over there, reading in the chair" Yang follows my finger lazily until she spots the black and white clad girl.
By the way, were in Vale do you buy a kimono? I thought only people in Mistral wore those.
It might be a hanfu.
I don't really know. Qrow didn't have time to teach me about ethnic evening wear. He barely managed to get through teaching me how to identify the different varieties of katanas before falling into a drunken stupor.
Actually, it definitely is not a hanfu. Probably.
The point I am trying to make, is why the heck is she wearing such strange pajamas. Does she think she is too good for the classic sweat pants and light t-shit combo? Mine even have roses on them! And a heart!
Where does she get off thinking she is sooooo unique!? She is just as fake as all the other so-called people running around pretending to be alive!
I am pulled from my annoyed inner tirade by my sister making weird growling noises. Yang, doing her best once again to make me uncomfortable, licks her lips suggestively when she lays her eyes on the girl. "Hubba hubba, you didn't mention it was a babe that came to your rescue."
It takes all my willpower not to punch my sister in the face, instead settling for face-palming, "Yang I think you have your priorities ever so slightly skewed."
Just once, please, can I have a conversation with my sister that doesn't eventually lead to her sexualizing a meat-bag?
"Did you thank her for helping you?" Yang asks with a very... untrustworthy look in her eye.
She is plotting something.
I feel it in my bones.
"No. She was too busy bickering with the Schnee for me to get a word in edgewise."
It was quite the sight too. Both girls looked like they were on the verge of tearing each other's hair out by the time I finally got fed up and wandered off to find the orientation. How two people can be so invested in... some company and their treatment of animal-people is beyond me.
Don't they realize the government is using them as a distraction to build their robot replacements?
Yang taps me on the shoulder to get my attention again. "Well come on!" She levers herself to her feet and drags me up with her, "No better time than now to say thanks!"
And so my sister drags me through the room, with my sleeping bag still half covering my body so I can't even use my legs to walk alongside her.
"Yang, are you just using this as an excuse to flirt with her? Because if so I would prefer to have nothing to do with it."
Yang freezes mid stride and gives me what looks like a cross between a smirk and a glare that ruins what she says next, "Sister, I am horrified you would even think such a thing of me. I am simply making sure my adorable little sister pays her respects to the wonderful woman that assisted her!" Her glare vanishes and the grin becomes more manic. "As the elder sister it is my job to make sure you are taken care of, and to properly thank anyone who does my job for me!"
I wonder if there is a store someplace where I could trade in my sister for a newer model.
The black-haired girl looks up at me out of the corner of her eye. It looks like she wants to have this conversation about as much as me.
Good. This should be quick.
"Heyo! I believe you two know each other?" My sister says happy as can be. The more miserable I get the happier she gets it seems.
The girl in question keeps staring at her book as if we will go away if she just pretends we don't exist long enough. Unfortunately for her she doesn't know Yang very well. No force on remnant will make Yang go away if she has it in her head to be annoying.
After almost a full minute of studiously annoying us, she huffs and closes her book with a snap. "What do you want?"
Yang nudges me forward.
"My name is Ruby Rose, I just wanted to thank you for your help dealing with the banshee earlier."
The girl visibly perks up when I remind her of her argument with Weiss. She must really dislike the girl that just thinking about arguing with her makes her happy.
What a wierdo.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Blake, Blake Belladonna."
I like her name for obvious reasons.
"And I'm Yang Xiao Long! Nice to meetcha!" My sister buts in from beside me and elbows me out of the way. Good thing too because beyond saying thank you and my name I have absolutely no conversation points to work with.
After tonight I shall take the time to jot down a list of them for future reference. You never know when you might need a topic of conversation after all.
Never mind I will get started on that now. Nothing better to do.
While Yang does her best to... what is it she says? "Woo" Blake, I take out my scroll, pop open a word processor and begin taking down all the different conversation starters I can remember Yang ever using.
Barring the... ahem... grotesque ones of course. I do have standards.
Somehow I don't think "Hey Sugar-tits" will have the same effect if I say it.
The heck does that mean anyway? That they have sweet tasting tits? What in the world is that supposed to mean to anyone!?
Sweets are great, but what the frack is a tit?
And how do you tell if someone's tits are sweet without tasting them first anyway. Wouldn't you have to have sampled their delicacies first to know whether or not they are sweet at all?
I have many questions.
Unfortunately, I can't ask Yang any of them because she will never shut up about it and I can't look them up on the internet because last time I searched for something Yang said I had to burn my scroll and clean my eyes with soap to remove the taint.
"Yang, how do you spell pocket?"
Blake gives me a confused look while Yang just takes it in stride.
"P-O-C-K-E-T, Pocket. You are talking about the things in pants, right?"
I nod and continue typing, "Yeah I'm writing down conversation starters since I'm not very good at them." I stop typing for a moment and look up at the two girls, "Also, what does having, "a roll of quarters in your pocket or are you just happy to see me" mean?"
Blake hides her now bright red face in her book for some reason and Yang pats me on the head.
"Oh Rubes, I swear any day now you will finally go through puberty."
Welcome to the bottom!
Once again, a chapter without any actual blood and murder. Mostly just me making shitty jokes at the characters expense over and over :P
I swear every time I write a chapter I think of a dozen things to say in the AN, or that i forgot to put in previous ones and forget every one of them when I actually get to writing the Authors Note. I really should start writing them down as I think of them so I don't constantly forget.
For anyone wondering, I should have another chapter of Last Time Around out soon. Getting back into that version of Ruby's mindset has been a tad strange. I keep having to re-write parts because I don't quite hit the tone properly or end up being too comical like I do in this story. None the less I should be able to get it together and bust out a chapter soon.
Not much else i can think of to say, onto the reviews.
Jackthespades: Name change? What do you mean? And Yeah i originally planned on having some fun "Ruby threatening weiss" to go down but ended up taking a more roundabout comical approach. I don't want them to suspect Ruby of being crazy too soon after all so if anything to outsiders she comes of as vaguely autistic or something instead haha. And yes, Initiation should be fun.
Kharaki Takan: You are dead to me.
Herpaderp1028: Tyrian will definitely be fun. It's a shame he is introduced so much later. I will probably have to find an excuse to bring him to Vale before his canon appearance just to prevent getting bored waiting for him.
Mecharic: Thats pretty much what I'm going for, Crazy Psychotic Ruby but also comedic enough that people who normally don't like crazy stories can enjoy it. If you have ever read/watched Youjo Senki/Saga of Tanya the Evil, I absolutely love the comical miscommunications the characters in that have because they have completely different frames of reference. I kinda wanted to include that odd off color humor in this story.
BetterTitles: that was the original plan actually. atm I am mostly playing it by ear as I go so not really much set in stone. Might happen, might not. Basically if you ever see this story and suddenly Ruby and Neo are in brackets than I decided to do it haha.
And thats all!
Thank you to everyone who read. Big thanks to anyone who reviewed, I love reading them even if their is nothing for me to respond to.
Hope you enjoyed, and I promise I wont get distracted reading My Hero Academia or Percy Jackson stories or something.
Although I might have jinxed it.