A/N: There are times where I get writer's block. Those times, I think to myselfl: WWMOD? And bam, it all makes sense. I know it's way late, but R.I.P. you magnificent son of a gun. Haloid will forever be embedded in my mind as one of his greatest creations to ever grace the internet.
Yang sat in class with her chin rested in the palm of her hand as she subconsciously tuned out Professor Port's incessant chatter about a time long since past his prime. How a man his age can speak for so long about his youth without passing out was a mystery to everyone, including the staff. Long winded speeches aside, she hasn't seen Juan or Ruby at all today. It was already nine o' clock, and there was still no sign of them.
She'd expected to wake up in the morning, all refreshed and raring to go, and meet up with her new boyfriend to have breakfast together. Heck, maybe they'd even enter the stage of their relationship where they feed each other and call each other by their incredibly sappy nicknames. To her surprise, however, Juan was nowhere to be found. Not even his roommates knew where he had went. And to top it all off, Ruby was missing as well.
Come to think of it, Ruby looked awfully nervous earlier today. It was by chance that she woke up when she did, otherwise she wouldn't have even seen Ruby. Her bed was dry, thank Monty above, so it wasn't about the bedwetting thing. But what was so important that she had to rush out of the dorm around the farmer's hour for fresh air? Unless...
No. No, it couldn't be. Her mind's just jumping to conclusion. But, by some astronomical chance, could it be that her own sister, her own flesh and blood, the girl she practically raised whenever their parents or other relatives weren't around, be conspiring against her behind her back? Conspiring to take Juan away from her? No, that's nonsense. Or is it? Yes, it was. But, the clues, they were all there.
Juan not being there when she woke up. Ruby acting all nervous and deflecting suspicion away from herself early in the morn right before she left for some fresh air. Sure, it could've been a mild coincidence that they happen to both be gone today, but her gut says otherwise. That, and she could really use some lunch right about now.
Yang knitted her brow. She desperately wanted her suspicions to be wrong. She wanted them to be wrong so badly that she was willing to take them by the metaphorical collar and pound them into the dirt relentlessly until they passed through the planet's core and reach the other end of the globe.
Giving herself some reprieve from her volatile thoughts, Yang eventually found out something about herself. She was the jealous type. In all her years of reading trashy romance novels and watching terrible romantic comedies, never in her life would she ever think of herself as the one who couldn't take the concept of letting her man be around another girl. And that scared her, because her sister was involved.
On second thought, perhaps it wasn't so surprising that she was the jealous type after recounting how many female heads she had to knock around during the brawl yesterday. But still, she wouldn't do anything drastic, would she?
Yang scrunched her face up in annoyance. All this extreme thinking was starting to get to her. She can take being the jealous type, but she would never forgive herself if she blew up on her little sister over a hunch that had every chance to be false. Relaxing her expression, she sighed and tried to rethink it all over.
Ruby was still a budding teenager at the ripe age of fifteen. Now if she knew her sister, which she did, she knew that Ruby was a snarling gun nut. Her love for her weapon and customizing said weapon was only dwarfed by the love she carried for her older sister, cookies, and the Captain Underpants novels. Boys should definitely be the last thing in her mind, so she could rule out the possibility that Ruby ran off with her boyfriend of only one day.
The question still remains; where are Juan and Ruby, and what are they doing right now?
"Wah! Where'd it go!? WHERE'D IT GO!" Ruby screamed in a panicked fit as she frantically tore at her hair. "The bomb! It was right here! How on earth does a bomb go missing!"
Ruby and Johann had just gotten back from Beatrice's place, arriving at Beacon only mere minutes ago. The first priority of course was to get the bomb Johann made and dismantle it as soon as possible. Too bad they can't seem to find it.
Ruby scanned over the pile of junk that Johann was working with hours ago. It had been cordoned off with orange tape, meaning someone already stumbled onto Johann's project, but it was vacant for the most part now that classes were in session. Most everything was still there, scrap metal and all. But perhaps the most jarring of absences was the hog sized bomb that was suppose to be there when they left earlier that today. It was missing, possibly stolen even.
"What are we gonna do?" Ruby continued with her freakout. "Okay, let's calm down. Let's not panic. Let's not panic!" She grabbed Johann by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close to where he could see the crazy glimmer in her silver eyes. "I said don't panic, Johann! What did I just tell you! Stop panicking, man! KEEP IT TOGETHER!"
"Beruhigen, fraulein." said Johann as he calmly pulled Ruby's hands away from him. "Take deep breathes."
"How on earth can you be so calm!" Ruby exclaimed. "There is a bomb out there!"
"Ja. Und as I've said time und time again, ze bomb ist not armed. Es ist of no threat to anyone. Yet."
"But what could've happened to it?" Ruby spoke in exasperation, trying to steady her rattled nerves. "It's not like this kind of thing could go unnoticed. I mean, who could miss a literal scrap yard and a bomb shaped bomb in the middle of campus!"
"Shh... ruhig. I'm trying to think." Johann kneeled on one leg and thoroughly examined the scene of the crime with his keen eyes. Slowly trailing his eyes across the concrete, he eventually spotted something that didn't belong there. "There, do you see it?" He pointed.
"What? What?" Ruby crouched low beside him. "What am I suppose to be looking for?"
"Right next to ze pebble by ze tarp, there ist a single hair." Johann picked up the hair and held it up to the light. It was white in color, and was fairly short. "If I were a genius, which I am, zen es ist a safe bet to say zat zis ist not ordinary hair. Es ist fur, to be precise. From ze tail of a wolf faunus, I presume, around twenty to thirty years of age." He twirled the strand of fur in his fingers.
"Whoa, you're going all crime scene investigation on me here, Johann." Ruby looked genuinely impressed. Having a genius level intellect within the personality, even if she didn't have the slightest clue as to how she actually gave it to him in the first place, was definitely handy to have around. "Go on. What else can you tell me about this... thing."
"Hmmm." Johann licked the fur.
"Eww... that was on the ground." Ruby cringed at the unsanitary action.
"I taste... sulfur." Johann smacked his lips a few times. "No, wait. I also taste... coal, and... limestone?"
"How do you even know what each of those taste like?" Ruby raised her eyebrow in curiosity.
"Zat doesn't matter. What does matter ist zat zis faunus spent a lot of time in a mine somewhere, mainly underground where these precious resources are located."
"Soooo..." Ruby drawled. "We're looking for some sort of faunus miner?"
"No. Ze white fang facility I went to for ze plutonium had its base of operation centered around an abandoned mineshaft forty miles due north."
"Near the edge of the mountains?" Ruby raised her eyebrow. "Wait, you're not seriously implying the white fang came by and stole your bomb made from stolen goods, does it?"
"Zat ist precisely vat I am implying, fraulein. They must've tracked me down, disguised in civilian clothing, and swiped ze bomb along with ze plutonium when the coast was clear."
"More business with the white fang, just great." Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. "We have to go after them. If the white fang find a way to arm that bomb, we could be looking at a major disaster here."
"But, Ruby, the bomb i-"
"No buts! School will have to wait for today. We're going to find that bomb, and we're going to recycle it before things spiral out of control!"
"What!" A new voice shouted from out of the nearby bushes.
"Hwuah!? Who's there!" Ruby reached for a nearby piece of junk, an old dented frying pan, and flung it straight at the bush, eliciting a cry of pain from someone inside and a satisfying clunk to echo into the air. "Yes! Score!"
"Ah!" Blake doubled over and fell out of the bush, rubbing the sore lump that would soon form atop her sensitive noggin. "Sheesh. You've got quite a throwing arm there, Ruby."
"Blake? What are you doing out of class?"
"It's passing period, Ruby." replied Blake as she stood up and dusting all the leaves and dirt off of her uniform. "And your sister kind of pulled me with her to, er... spy on you. Even though I told her this was a bad idea in the first place..."
"What!? Yang's here too?" Ruby's eyes widened as Yang also crawled out of the bushes, twigs and leaves tangled in her golden locks as she looked over her sister with an awkward smile.
"Heh, heh. Hey, Rubes... how ya doing?" said Yang with a weak smile.
"You were spying on me, why? When?" Ruby impatiently tapped her foot with an irate scowl on her face.
"Uh... Just right now since I saw you, and because I was worried for you?" Yang kept her smile.
"Hmph. That would've worked on me yesterday, but not today. Answer me, Yang. Why were you spying on me." Ruby asked a bit more forcefully. Yang conceded to her sister's growing irritation, and let out a deep sigh.
"I... I thought you were going try and take Juan from me..." Yang answered with a shameful droop of the head. "I got this silly notion stuck in my head during class that I thought you snuck out with Juan this morning to try and steal him away from me, so I dragged Blake with me to spy on you. And, well, here we are now. There, I said it... Are you mad?"
"N-no. Not really." Ruby simmered down. "I'm not angry that you spied on me, I'm angry that you'd think I'd do something so hurtful to you. And I'm not trying to steal your boyfriend! Look, I forgive you, but please, now is really not the best time to get all mushy and stuff. We've got to stop the white fang!"
"The white fang have acquired a bomb, right?" Blake cut in.
"How much of the conversation did you hear?" Ruby snapped straight to Blake.
"Only the last part. But it's more than enough for us to play hooky." said Yang as she cracked her knuckles. "Sounds like those troublemakers are at it again. We got to put a stop to them before it's too late." She turned to Johann. "Whaddaya say, cutie?"
"I say, if you're so insistent on stopping these terrorist, zen ve are going to need our veapons." said Johann.
"Why're you talking so funny, Juan?" Yang asked, both intrigued and perplexed by Juan's new accent. "I don't think it's sexy at all."
"Juan? Who's Juan?" Johann raised his eyebrow.
"Uh oh..." Ruby groaned.
