Chapter 29: Fool's Errand II: Long Live the Queen

AN: Alright, I kinda need to get this off my chest. Holy shit guys. 10.5k views, 60+ follows, nearly 50 favorites, and more regular readers than I can shake a hyperintelligent AI at. I still can't believe that RWKY has gotten the kind of success it has. Well, I mean, I don't really know what truly counts as success for a first story on this site, but I consider this a success for me. Honestly, truly, thank you. All of you. I am incredibly happy to have found a new hobby in writing as opposed to playing about 10 hours of video games a day, and I am tremendously grateful for being able to interact with all of you. As horribly cliché it is to say this, you guys really are the reason I keep writing.

Also, I kinda want/need to address the future of this story. First things first, yes, I am in this for the long haul. At minimum, RWKY will continue until I've covered the end of Volume 3. After taking a good hour to think on and map out the story from here, I'm tentatively deciding on 103 chapters total for this story: the Introduction, the three volumes, intervolume material for the time periods between V1-2 and V2-3, and a two-part Epilogue. That means we've got 73 chapters to go. Two chapters a week, 37 weeks… what did I just sign myself up for again? So yeah, we're going all the way with this sucker.

And as for that other story that I said I may have an idea on? Yeah, I can understand keeping the focus on one story at a time. After the epilogues I'll probably switch things up, but for now I can appreciate the need to give my full attention to one story at a time, to make it as good as I can.

Enough talk about not-Kassidy stuff. In the part of the chapter that you guys actually care about, we briefly explore a bit of Kassidy's past, and for once it's not filled with murder death violence. One shopping spree later, REVENGE!

(Perspective: Kassidy)

Yang and Kassidy took opposite sides of the lunch table. As the two blondes tore into their respective sandwiches, Kassidy kept her head down and a glare in her eyes, which did nothing to improve Yang's mood. Truth be told, Kassidy wasn't terribly mad; sure, there was the fact that her whole morning got wasted, but she likes to think of herself as a simple girl. As long as it's not trying to kill her, she doesn't really care. However, the whole act of feigning hurt did have its own benefits. Firstly, it gave her some needed practice with lying. And second, it was critical to her plans that Yang thought she was pissed at her.

"Still not a word, huh?"

"If you want me to be sociable, you should try showering."

Yang's face lit up at having gotten her partner to finally talk to her. "I know I'd get you out of your shell eventually."

"Hmm."

"Ugh, I said I'm sorry. What more do you want from me?"

"Nothing you can give." A sly grin came across Kassidy's face, but she fought to instantly bring it back under control. "Besides, you should be worrying less about me. From what I've heard, you have a lot of catching up to do in this little prank war our group has started."

"Yeah, I suppose." Yang huffed and took another bite from her sandwich. Wow, she's really that depressed I'm pretending to be mad at her? If the reward wasn't worth it if I pull this off right, I'd almost feel bad.

"Hey, Yang, would Ruby happen to like raisins by chance?"

The unexpected question pulled Yang out of her uncharacteristic moping. "Uh… no. Why do you ask?"

"Was planning on doing a bit of shopping this afternoon. Get everyone peace offerings. The whole shebang. And obviously the easy way to get on your sister's good side is with cookies."

Yang chuckled slightly. "Yeah, that's right. Though don't get her oatmeal raisin cookies. She hates those things."

"Good to know. Now, if you excuse me, I have a Bullhead to catch to downtown Vale." After cleaning up her dishes, Kassidy got on the next flight.

Unlike previous Bullhead trips, Kassidy was unable to hold her bile. The fact that her lunch was just wasted for naught did nothing to improve her mood. Eventually, and thankfully, the flight landed in the heart of the city. Consulting a map and ensuring her pistol was still concealed under the bottom of her jacket, she set off towards the nearest general store.

"So, uh, remind me again why we're actually going shopping?"

"Because, Bob, I have a reputation to protect."

"And what reputation would that be?"

Finding a Rem-mart, Kassidy stepped inside and began perusing their wares. "You actually don't know?" Stopping in front of a section with magnets, she smiled, nodded, and added a couple to her basket, before remembering something and facepalming. "Oh crap, that's right. My school days were before I built you. You probably don't have any records of the terror I inflicted upon my classmates at elementary."

"That would be an accurate assessment."

"Well, dear friend, get yourself comfortable, because it's story time." Throwing a bag of confetti on top of the slowly growing pile of odds and ends, Kassidy began to explain herself.

"Back on Earth, before everything bad happened, back when I was knee high to a grasshopper, I went to school. Yeah, imagine that."

"You must have been quite the model student. Incredibly intelligent, curious to a fault, and quite compassionate when the person in question isn't trying to kill you."

Kassidy snorted in laughter. "Boy do I have you fooled. I had that school ruled with an iron fist. Nothing hurtful or particularly mean, mind you, but between dominating every sport, every recess, every P.E. class, as well as the pranks I'd pull, I was basically the devil incarnate."

"If this was so bad, how come I've never heard of this before?"

"Well, it wasn't bad, per se. I was a pain in the ass, not destructive. As aggravating as I was to the teachers, they knew I was just after some honest fun. Sure, I got a slap on the wrist here and there, maybe a detention if I really got out of line, but it was just a huge game for me, and I bet it was one for them too." She had to stop to wipe tears of nostalgia from her eyes. "Damn, why does thinking of the past always make me cry? At least there's still a couple good memories up in my gray matter."

"Do I strike you as a psychologist?"

"Nope. Just someone who has to listen to me without getting a say in the matter."

"I feel so much better now."

"I'm sure you do, Bob. I'm sure you do." Stopping at the bakery, Kassidy picked out two packages of cookies: one chocolate chip, one oatmeal raisin.

"Didn't Yang say to not get the oatmeal raisin kind?"

"Yes."

"Then why did… ah. May I ask what is going on here?"

"Yes you may. Back home, April Fool's was a pretty big deal. I was pretty much the prank queen." Stepping up to a self-serve register, she smiled evilly. "You saw what everyone was dealing with this morning. The first blows have already been struck, and Yang had me taped to a bed all morning. After the fiasco that was this morning, it's time for the queen to take her throne once more."

There needed to be a specific method to the madness in order to get the most chaos out of today. For example, pranking Yang would be best to wait until the end of the day, when she and Pyrrha would be finished with a spar they had agreed on. Similarly, pranking Weiss needed to be done in a public place. Jaune was too easy, and anything she could do to him wouldn't have too many run-on effects with the rest of their little circle. Same thing with Ruby. And as for Ren… it took her a while for her to figure out how to even prank him in a meaningful way.

However, after some thought, Kassidy decided that it would be best to kill two birds with one stone by pranking both Ren and Nora simultaneously, and it was the pink clad grenadier that she was looking for now. Nora wasn't terribly hard to find, currently working out in one of the gyms and benching… 350 pounds?! How many pancakes did that girl eat for breakfast this morning? Shaking her head, Kassidy took the opportunity to strike. For this particular prank, she'd need to prey on Nora's competitive nature, and the dire warnings Ren gave everyone about not letting her have caffeine. "Hey there Valk. Thanks for not breaking my legs this morning."

Nora sat up from the bench, wiping her face with a towel. "Well, you're lucky you were able to prove you didn't actually dye my hair. Or spike my syrup. Still need to figure out who did, though."

"I'm sure you'll find out who soon enough. Hmm, three hundred fifty pounds? Not bad. Keep up the work and you might catch up to Yang."

"WHAT? Yang lifts more than me?" Nora didn't catch on to the lie. In reality, they were dead even, but the impact was made.

"Yeah, she was doing three eighty five yesterday."

"Crap! I gotta work more, then!"

"I think I might be able to help with that." Upon Nora's confused look, Kassidy pulled out a tall can of a heavily caffeinated energy drink from her book bag. "I like making new friends, and one of them was quick to recommend this little beauty for helping with energy levels."

"Gimme! Gimme, gimme, gimme!" Nora snatched the can out of her hands and straight up chugged the whole thing. After finishing the drink, she dropped the can without lowering it from her face. Her pupils had narrowed to pinhole sized, and there was a slight tremble in her hands.

Excellent. Now, to finish things off… "Oh, by the way, Bob managed to get into the video surveillance in Beacon. Turns out it was Jaune that spiked your syrup, and Pyrrha that dyed your shampoo." The best part about this was that those weren't actually lies. It really is true that it's the quiet ones you need to watch out the most for.

Nora turned her head to face Kassidy, manic grin plastered on her face. "Okaythanksbye!" With that, she seemed to teleport, only the faintest pink blur indicating that Nora had zoomed out the door. Presumably to deal with her treacherous teammates.

Only one thing left to do, and that's to make sure Nora gets pranked too. And there's only one man for the job for that. Having Bob bring up the CCT's equivalent of a text messaging service, Kassidy typed quickly.

I'M SO SORRY, REN.

The reply took a few seconds.

WHAT FOR?

YOU'LL HEAR ABOUT IT SOON ENOUGH.

YOU GAVE NORA CAFFEINE, DIDN'T YOU?

HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF SUCH A RECKLESS THING? ALSO, YES I DID. GOOD LUCK.

YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS.

With Nora wreaking havoc across the school grounds, and Ren desperately trying to contain her rampage, it was safe to say that everyone was suitably distracted. With nobody to catch her in the act, Kassidy had ample opportunity to set up her next three pranks. Jaune liked his comic books, so those were the obvious targets. Bob found and mimicked the signal needed to unlock their door, and she spied one on his bed, opened to the first page. Perfect.

Pulling out a cheap bottle of glue, she wasted no time in gluing random pages together. This is too easy. There's gotta be something else here worth doing. Looking around, she spied Crocera Mors lying on what she assumed to be Jaune's desk. Well, if push comes to shove I can probably blame it on Cardin. Or Ruby. The shield turned scabbard had simple mechanisms, and it was equally simple to rig it to expand after being jostled by only a slight force.

Satisfied with her work, Kassidy returned to her own dorm. The next targets were Ruby and Weiss. Dropping the two packages of cookies on her bed, she got to work swapping the cookies. Again, too easy, but there was more that could be done. Taking the oatmeal raisin package (now filled with chocolate chip), she worked it on Yang's bed, slightly under her covers while leaving enough of it poked out to make it look like Yang was careless.

After preparations were made, Kassidy sat down to her desk. Now, it was merely a matter of waiting. Weiss always went on study marathons on Sunday afternoons, and almost always had Ruby dragged into the library with her. Kassidy needed the heiress' study materials for her next act, and giving Ruby false cookies wasn't much of a prank when Ruby wasn't around to receive them. One thirty? Probably another hour before they get back. Might as well get my own studying done while I can. Got that Grimm Studies test on Tuesday.

A solid sixty minutes of memorizing Creep biology later, and Ruby and Weiss both burst into the room right on schedule. The two were arguing as per usual: Ruby about how unfair it was to be cooped up in the library for two and a half hours, and Weiss on their leader's ineffectual study habits. Kassidy let them go at it for about a minute, then cleared her throat and stood up. "Hey, I know something that'll cheer you up, Ruby."

"What's that?"

"I feel kinda bad about snapping at you earlier. So I went and got you these." Digging into her bag, Kassidy brought out the package of chocolate chip cookies (which were actually oatmeal raisin). In a 'blink and you'll miss it' moment, Kassidy went from holding a box of cookies to holding a small handful of rose petals as Ruby tore the box from her hands, spouting absurd amounts of thank-yous before opening the container and inhaling the first one. Her face was priceless as it twisted into a grimace, and it took most of Kassidy's self-control not to bust up laughing. "Is there a problem?"

"This isn't chocolate chip! This is oatmeal raisin! I HATE OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES!"

"Woah, what? Did they mark it wrong or something?"

"I thought that too, until I noticed that the package had already been opened before you gave it to Ruby." Weiss was all too quick to try and sound intelligent. Which is just what I was counting on.

As Ruby advanced on her menacingly, Kassidy schooled her face into one of fear, while pretending to back into the bunk bed. "Now hold on, this wasn't my doing! Let's not do anything drastic, okay?" Kassidy looked behind her and conveniently saw the package of oatmeal raisin cookies (which were actually chocolate chip). "Wait, what?" Pulling them out from their hidey hole, she was enthused by Weiss making the comment that they were pre-opened as well.

Ruby halted in her tracks. "Okay, so you gave me a package of chocolate chip cookies that were actually oatmeal raisin. Then you pulled out a package of oatmeal raisin cookies hidden under Yang's sheets."

Kassidy nodded along, pretending to be as clueless as Ruby was. "You don't think…?"

Ruby took a cookie, pleasantly finding it to be chocolate chip. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed and hardened in resolve. "Yang. You will pay for this treachery, sister!" The door flew open and shut, a trail of rose petals leading out.

Weiss looked at Kassidy, pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed. "Well played, I suppose. At least it'll keep those two out of my hair for a while."

"My pleasure." Kassidy returned to her notes on Bob, before 'suddenly' thinking of something. "Hey, you usually take walks right about this time, don't you?" Of course Weiss took walks through the campus gardens on Sunday afternoons. It seemed to be the heiress' favorite means of relaxing.

"Um, yes? Why do you ask?"

"Do you mind leaving out your notes while you go out? I think I might've missed something on that Grimm Studies exam I need."

"Ugh. Alright, fine. But please start paying more attention in class." With that, Weiss gathered up her coat and practically strutted out the door. Well, don't try to look like an arrogant rich kid or anything.

With the dorm room empty once again, Kassidy smirked as she made her way over to the study materials on Weiss' desk. Of course, it wasn't the notes themselves that were important. Crap, actually paying attention to Port? I'll do that whenever Yang gets a haircut. No, the true targets were Weiss' pens. Taking out the two that were there, Kassidy brought them over to her desk and quickly disassembled them, leaving them with empty inkwells. Reaching into her bag, she dug out a small bag of fake blood. Not every day I get to make Weiss eat her own words. This'll be fun if I can make this happen in a public enough place. Which I will, because she's predictable.

Having spent most of the afternoon innocently studying in her room, Kassidy was the first to dinner. More sandwiches, this time of the roast beef variety. Settling down to a rather large sandwich, with a healthy helping of salad at Bob's insistence, she started slowly consuming her food while looking at the news. First to the table was Jaune and Pyrrha. The former nursed an injured arm, while the latter looked out of breath and annoyed. Kassidy decided to broach the conversation first. "Hey there, you two. How's your day been so far?"

"You mean after we walked in on you and Yang, well, you know…?" Jaune and Pyrrha both blushed immensely at his mention of the incident. What the hell is with people recently? This is getting more than a little annoying.

"Hey, I did warn you not to visit our dorm today. Oh, I almost forgot something." Kassidy dug around in her pockets before grabbing what she had stuffed in there earlier. "Hey, Pyrrha, did I hear right your Semblance thingamajig is magnetism?"

"Polarity, actually."

"Ugh, there you people go with your incorrect science terms again." Kassidy faked a pout, before pulling her hand up to reveal the magnets she held. "Either way, catch."

She had tossed the trio of magnets perfectly. Pyrrha tried ducking out of the way, but it made little difference as the small stones started orbiting her head. Kassidy bit back some chuckles as Pyrrha tried to reach a hand up to grab them, only to have the magnets move away from her hand. About a minute of struggling later, a very frustrated Pyrrha resigned herself to having a trio of magnets orbit her head for the foreseeable future.

It was at this moment that Ruby and Yang sat themselves down to the table. Both of them had grass and dirt streaks in their hair and clothes, and looked exhausted. They were about to continue an argument before they abruptly stopped and stared at the newest additions to Pyrrha's head. Ruby decided to ask the obvious question. "Are those-"

"Magnets," Pyrrha confirmed.

The two sisters looked at each other, then started giggling helplessly. Obviously, Yang had a pun for the situation. "Wow, Pyrrha, I guess you've got quite the magnetic personality."

"Quite attractive, if I do say so myself." Kassidy's attempt at humor was met with four blank stares and reddened faces.

"Dust, you actually don't know what you're saying, do you?" Yang's voice was filled with disbelief.

"Uh, of course I do? Why would I use words that I don't understand the definitions of?"

"Because you evidently don't understand every definition of the words you're saying." Weiss came up to the table, dropped a large salad in front of her seat, and pulled out her notes and pens. Shortly behind her were Nora and Ren, both of whom were flustered and out of breath.

"Kassidy… don't do that again… ever," Ren managed to get out between pants. "I had to get an actual sloth for her to calm down."

"Well, congrats on your new team mascot." Kassidy got back to her sandwich, while noticing out of the corner of her eye Weiss getting notebook and pen ready to do some more studying. All I have to do is wait for her to start writing and…

"What the…" Weiss stared in confusion at the red her pen was secreting, before her eyes went wide, she jumped out of her seat, and let loose an ear-piercing scream. The seven other teens practically fell out of their seats, apart from Kassidy who was rather curious.

Unpredictedly, but much to Kassidy's amusement, Professor Goodwitch came over to investigate the scream. "What on Remnant are you eight doing this time?"

"My pen! It… uh… it…" Weiss was having trouble doing English.

Kassidy leaned in to take a closer look at the red-inked notes. She took a sniff and nodded authoritatively, before turning to the heiress. "You know, when you said a few weeks ago you'd take notes with the blood of your enemies, I didn't think you meant that literally."

"WHAT?!" Weiss was flabbergasted, before leaning in herself to examine the situation. "This is fake blood, and you asked me to leave my notes out earlier so you could study them." Turning around with unrestrained fury, Weiss conjured a white glyph in front of her. "Any last words, Smith?"

Kassidy got up from the table and started slowly backing away. "Would this be a good time to start running?" With eight nods of yes, she turned around and got to work dodging ice blasts from Weiss, eventually making it out of the cafeteria more or less unscathed.

She waited for a good twenty minutes, before the gang left as a group and started heading towards the practice arenas for Yang and Pyrrha's spar. As they left, Kassidy got Nora's attention, and pulled her off to the side. "Hey, I don't like asking for favors, but could I borrow Magnhild for a little bit?"

Nora narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "And why is that?"

"Because I saved the best for last." The two girls grinned wildly, and shook on it.

It took a little bit, but the modifications were done. Twenty minutes later, Kassidy found herself walking into the arena just as Yang and Pyrrha's sparring match ended. Apparently, there had been a couple other friendly bouts before the main event, which suited her just fine. With the grenade launcher and specialty grenade stowed in her giant hiking backpack, she found a bench to watch the end of the fight.

Surprisingly, Pyrrha messed up. Not to where she got beaten by Yang, but to where she completely drained the last of Yang's aura. The blonde hit the ground hard, sore and exhausted. Pyrrha ran over with a mouth full of apologies, and helped her up. Yang stood shakily, but quickly got her footing. Looking around, she asked, "Anything else before we all pack up for the night?"

"Yes." Kassidy faked an angry voice, and walked out. "I still have a score to settle with you from this morning."

"Sorry K, my aura's kinda nonexistent right now."

"Good." Kassidy took a few steps forward before setting the backpack down from off her shoulders.

"Uh, you're starting to scare me a bit partner. What's going on?"

"What's going on?" Kassidy spat on the ground before continuing. "You attacked me, wasted my morning, and have been a general pain. And that's just today. This whole semester you've been going out of your way to test my patience. Well, today you pushed it too far." Alright, enough with the monologue. Need to do this now before they catch on to this prank.

Yang took a few steps back. "What's this about?"

With the prompt from her partner, Kassidy opened her bag and took out Magnhild, making sure her modified grenade was already loaded. "I guess what I'm trying to say is… you're fired."

The next second and a half occurred in slow motion. The projectile left the launcher, Yang's eyes went comically wide, and everyone else was yelling and screaming and had wide eyes of their own. Yang threw up her arms in a useless instinct to shield herself and squeezed her eyes shut. Then, just as the grenade reached her, it exploded.

When Yang didn't hear the expected detonation, she dared to crack an eye open. She was now covered in confetti, the dull metal case rolling to a stop at her feet. Silence filled the room for exactly three seconds, before Kassidy crumpled to the floor, no longer able to contain her laughter. Yang started laughing too, and in a few moments everyone was in on the joke. Even Weiss and Ren were failing to suppress a few giggles.

Eventually, Yang crawled to her feet and made her way over to Kassidy, before bowing at the knee. "Well, I tried my best, and I can't believe I'm saying this. But I think someone beat me in pranking today."

Ruby gasped. "What? Nobody's ever beaten Yang before! That means… Kassidy! You're the new Prank Queen!"

Nora got in on the act. "Long live Queen Kassidy!"

AN 2: Okay, so thanks to my absolutely flawless time management skills, I'm writing the second half of this author's note roughly fifteen minutes before this gets posted, if not sooner than that. Yeah, the last few sentences were a little on the rushed side, but I doubt I would've been able to get down anything better at a reasonable time. While there's a bunch more I can talk about, I've already started things off with the longest AN ever. So let's skip straight to the Reader Responses and save more discussion for Wednesday.

Matt Cyr: The disco hate was not a Martian reference. Rather, The Martian referenced any sane person's rational hatred for the abomination of music that is disco.

James: I can understand that, and I'll be keeping the second story ideas down for a while. A prequel, though? Probably not.

Akshka: No tape here, but hopefully entertaining as is.

AndJrew76: Long time, no read! So glad you're continuing to enjoy the story.

AgentDraakis: Alright, just because you asked, a small innuendo. To tide you over until Wednesday. We're hitting that point pretty damn hard next chapter.