The Intriguing Case of Ruby and Red
Chapter 7
Matters Concerning Politics and Communication Issues
I don't own RWBY. Things will change, others will be similar to canon, but, all in all, there shall be chaos. It took a little longer to finish than I expected, but it is finally complete.
"Well, the Vytal Festival should be interesting, at least," Ruby said as Team RWBY walked through the streets of Vale, headed for the docks, "Especially the weapons."
"I'm more interested in how their wielders use them," Weiss said, "We've got teams coming from all over for this celebration of cultures. How can anyone not be excited."
"Which leads us to the docks," Blake said dryly, "To spy on the new arrivals."
"You don't have to make it sound so crude," Weiss protested, once again examining the stock market and occasionally typing into her scroll.
"What's going on over there?" Yang asked, looking at a police cordon set up at a shop down the block.
They quickly made their way to the cordon, waiting at the edge as two police detectives murmured amongst themselves.
"Azul, Crimson, what happened?" Ruby asked softly, catching the pair's attention.
The officers looked at her before they each carefully glanced from left to right. Once they saw that the coast was clear, they started speaking softly.
"Alright, now we didn't say anything about this, but there's been a Dust Shop robbery," Azul said quietly, deliberately looking casual as he spoke.
"There's actually been a slew of them," Crimson said, masking his lip movements with a cup of coffee that he didn't actually drink, "They've been leaving the money and taking the Dust, so they've got to be setting up for some sort of army." He paused, pretending to wipe his mouth off with a napkin as he said, "We haven't been able to place anyone specific for this, but people are starting to suspect the White Fang."
"They're the only group who fit the bill for someone needing to supply an army with Dust quickly," Azul concluded, "Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find any actual signs of suspects through S.O.P." He raised his voice to a regular volume and said, "You kids should just head on out. We don't have time for rubbernecking…"
"Got it," Ruby nodded, "Sorry for distracting you, detectives."
"Police don't usually tell random passersby things about on-going investigations," Yang noted.
Ruby, for her part, ignored that, and instead called out, "Blake, Weiss, what are you arguing about?!"
"Weiss seems to agree with those detectives," Blake said flatly, her bow slightly flattened, as well, "Despite the White Fang having no reason to be attacking shops in Vale."
"What about because they're a terrorist organization?" Weiss asked flatly, "That seems like a pretty good reason to me."
"The White Fang is not a terrorist organization," Blake protested, "They're just misguided Faunus who want the right to be treated as people."
"They've killed people!" Weiss protested.
"Then they're very misguided!" Blake replied, only for the pair to freeze at a sense of dread deep within them.
"Play. Nice," Red said flatly, her eyes glinting menacingly before Ruby took over once more.
"It's a nice day, girls," Ruby said, "Why don't we table the politics for now?"
"Yeah," Yang said, "We're here to relax and get a good look at the competition. Let's not make a mess of things with you two arguing."
"Hey, stop right there!" a police officer shouted, causing Azul and Crimson to rush from the crime scene.
As they did so, they all watched as a blond-haired Faunus with a monkey tail rush past them. As he passed, he winked at Blake before picking up the pace, the two officers chasing him as quickly as they could.
"After them!" Weiss shouted, racing behind the officers, prompting the rest of the team to follow her. As they rounded the corner, however, Weiss slammed into something that felt as solid as steel rods bolted together. "They're getting away!" Weiss bemoaned as she watched the boy swing over rooftops as the detectives tried to give chase.
"You might wanna look at what you slammed into," Yang said.
Looking down, Weiss immediately bolted up at the sight of an odd redheaded girl with a cheerful smile on her face.
"Salutations!" the girl said, inflecting too heavily upon the stressed syllables, not rising from the ground.
"Are you alright?" Yang asked.
"I'm doing fine, thank you!" the girl said, "Why do you ask?"
"Can you stand?" Ruby asked, walking over and offering a hand up. The girl, however, did not take it, opting to leap into the air with a grin.
"I'm Penny Polendina," she said, "It's nice to meet you! Who are you?"
"I'm Ruby Rose."
"Weiss Schnee."
"Blake Belladonna."
"Yang Xiao Long…" Yang paused as a thought occurred to her. "Did you say 'Polendina?' Are you related to a Professor Polendina?"
"That is my father!" she replied, "That would make you two the daughters of Taiyang Xiao Long. Father has mentioned your family in the past. You're the one who he made all those arms for, right? I'm very happy to meet you! I have only known of you two through your father's letters to mine!"
"I don't remember his letters mentioning you…" Yang said slowly.
"I am a relatively recent addition to his family," Penny said.
"Well, it was nice to meet you, too, Penny,: Ruby said, making the redhead smile.
"If you're Professor Polendina's daughter," Weiss chimed in, "What are you doing in Vale?"
"Oh!" Penny exclaimed, "I am here to participate in the Vytal Festival!"
"You're a Huntress in training?" Blake asked in a tone that sounded like it was taking effort to not sound incredulous.
"I am combat ready!" Penny agreed cheerfully.
"Where's your partner?" Ruby asked.
"I assume it wasn't that possible stowaway," Weiss noted dryly.
"My partner, Ciel Soleil, is currently preoccupied with determining our schedule. At the moment, I am attempting to be at leisure and make friends," Penny replied, "I will be meeting up with her in precisely twenty-eight minutes, seventeen seconds by the end of this sentence.."
"Well, we should head back," Yang said, "We've got other stuff to do. Maybe we'll see you around. Give Professor P. our best…"
"Take care, friend!" Ruby said as her parting words while Blake and Yang waved their goodbyes.
"I can't believe that's Professor Polendina's daughter," Weiss noted.
"I know. He's always sounded so put together in his letters, but she seems like she's a few bullets short of a full clip," Yang noted.
"Did you mean what you said?" Penny asked, stopping them all dead in their tracks as they saw her standing before them.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Yang said sincerely, "I didn't mean to…"
"Not you," Penny interjected, somehow managing to sound polite before she walked past Yang, Weiss, and Blake to move in on Ruby, "You…"
"What did I…?" Ruby said as Penny leaned in close to her, causing Ruby to lean back.
"Did you really mean that?" Penny asked, "Do you really consider me your friend?"
"Your eyes are really pretty," Ruby said, before quickly covering her mouth as Penny's almost glowing eyes seemed to widen slightly, "I mean, 'Yes.' Yes, I you friend. I'm your friend." She did her best to not look at Weiss and Blake respectively smacking her own forehead and pinching the bridge of her nose, as well as Yang's smirk. She suspected that she wouldn't be hearing the end of this for some time. She did, however, notice that Penny had a broad smile on her face.
"Sensational!" Penny exclaimed, "We can paint our nails, have sleepovers, watch movies…!"
"Wow, Rubes," Yang interjected, that smirk still not leaving her face, "And here I thought you were only interested in weapons."
"You like weapons?!" Penny asked excitedly.
"Yeah," Ruby replied, still thrown off by her own words.
"That's wonderful news!" Penny said, only for the conversation to be cut off by the sound of Blake and Weiss arguing.
"They've done nothing to engender trust from anyone!" Weiss argued, "The White Fang has been attacking people for years!"
"Well, maybe if companies like the SDC were to be much more serious about protecting their workforce, instead of using them as practically slave labor…!" Blake retorted.
"We'll talk more later," Ruby said, "We've got some team stuff to work out…"
"Farewell, friend!" Penny smiled, waving as she turned to leave.
"She gets to leave," Yang noted dryly, "If only we were so lucky as your little girlfriend."
"We just met her," Ruby muttered, before turning towards the pair and shouting, "Quiet!" When they both fell silent, she said, "Save it for the dorm. We're heading back. Now."
It was a testament to Ruby's annoyance that she had managed to strike fear into the hearts of the pair without having to switch places with Red.
The entirety of Team RWBY were completely silent as they made their way back to Beacon. Any time Weiss or Blake tried to speak, they were silenced by a flat stare from Ruby, and Yang didn't seem interested in talking either, seeming to have decided to let the situation play out.
Once they had gotten into the room, Ruby, still in a terrifying calm that was decidedly not the brand of terror that Red inflicted upon people, said, "Now, you're going to discuss this, and you will start civilly."
"Blake," Weiss began delicately, "while you are my teammate and have my respect, I have to question your insistence that the White Fang is anything but a terrorist organization. They've killed hundreds by this point."
"The White Fang was created in response to humans treating Faunus as lesser beings, Weiss," Blake replied slowly, "The escalation in violence was clearly in response to their mistreatment."
"But it still hasn't affected the right change," Weiss countered, "Look at Velvet. She has to hold back against Cardin and his ilk because they've made it so that any violence on the part of a Faunus would lead to people assuming they're part of a terrorist organization."
"It's not a perfect setup," Blake admitted, "But it's likely a problem with the current leadership. The underlying problem with how society treats the Faunus is still a major problem, one that was directly responsible for the rise of the White Fang. You have to admit that corporations like the SDC made life difficult for the Faunus, particularly their workers."
"That is not how the Schnee Dust Corporation is supposed to be," Weiss said flatly, "That was my father's doing."
"That just proves my point," Blake replied, "If your family's company can be run by someone like that, couldn't the White Fang have found themselves under misguided leadership."
"Terrible person that he is, my father hasn't ordered people to be executed," Weiss stated with heat slowly returning to her voice.
"No, he just enslaves people and cuts corners when it comes to safety regulations," Blake bit back.
Yang turned away from the slowly re-escalating fight to look at her younger sister, who was watching the proceedings with a very clear concern. Looking down, she saw her trigger finger twitching in the way that indicated that Red was trying her best to push to the fore to spare Ruby the stress of whatever situation she was in at a given time. As the conversation grew more and more intense, the twitching grew more and more intense, until it was as if Ruby were releasing a full magazine into the ground.
For her part, Yang placed her hand on Ruby's shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture before the argument once again caught her attention.
"Do you know why I hate the White Fang?" Weiss demanded, "Why I refuse to believe they were just misguided? They've been at war with my family for as long as I can remember. Literal war. Practically every day, I would find out that another board member was killed. My mother's friends, even members who were trying to enact change as best they could. Every single day there was another attack. Facilities burned down to the ground, trains attacked. And every day, my father would be more and more furious. That made for a very unpleasant childhood. Things just kept getting worse and worse. If not for Klein taking such an active role in my growing up, I probably would have been a worse person. I could have wound up like my father with all the hatred I saw growing up. So, I can't accept that they're just misguided, not when all I've ever known them for is bloodshed. Even if that was how they started, they're nothing more than cutthroat murderers, now."
"Have you even thought about why we'd be like that?" Blake demanded, "Why we'd fight harder and harder as things got worse and worse for the Faunus? We were a protest group before your side escalated things. We wanted peace, but you just kept at it, until everything finally fell apart. We tried to be peaceful, but no one let us. We fought so hard to be treated with respect, only for people to keep treating us as if we were less than humans. People like your father, whose cruelty towards his Faunus workers helped lead to the White Fang choosing a change in leadership. We tried our best and all we got in response was more of the same. So, of course the majority of our members wound up following a leadership that we never should have listened to. We got desperate and now look at what happened…"
Blake paused, and even Ruby's trigger finger stopped as the weight of Blakes words took hold. There was no mistaking what she had said or the implications behind them. Weiss, for her part, stared at Blake in muted horror while Blake stood stock-still, knowing exactly what she had revealed. The entire team was frozen, unwilling to do anything, until Blake bolted out of the room before anyone else could regain their bearings.
Blake ran, stopping only at the statue at the front of Beacon, feeling the guilt she'd felt weighing down upon her as she removed her bow to reveal cat ears as she mournfully stared at the graven images of the Hunters before her.
"I thought you might look better without that bow," a cheerful voice called out from one of the lampposts, drawing her attention up to the speaker.
There was a noticeable chill in the air in Blake's absence, a sense of dread that, while nowhere near as terrifying as it was when the had faced the Nevermore, was decidedly more menacing than what Red normally caused in people.
"Red…" Yang asked slowly, much to Weiss's confusion. She hadn't ever heard Yang be cautious around Red before.
"Sister," Red acknowledged tonelessly.
"Will Ruby be coming out soon?" Yang asked.
"Unlikely," was the reply as Red began to head for the door, "Friend has run away. Will be tracking her down. Follow."
"That's not a good sign…" Yang muttered, before turning towards Weiss, "We'd better do what she says. When they get in this mood, there's no reasoning with Red and we won't be seeing Ruby until they both calm down…"
"What's going on with them?" Weiss asked as they followed Red out.
"Long story," Yang replied, "It's kinda like a defense mechanism. The best thing for everyone involved is to get Blake back, and fast."
Blake sighed as she looked at her reflection in a teacup.
"You know, you'd probably feel better if you talk to someone about this," the blond Faunus said.
"You really want to know, Sun?" Blake asked, "Alright. You might even be right. It could help to talk about it…"