Grimmfolk: One Shot Excerpt

by Xavier Rall

Weiss and Blake have something in common: They both have a Grimmfolk partner with whom they are rather uncomfortable. Weiss thinks Ruby is both too childish in school, and too monstrous in combat. For Blake, her partner Yang is crude, rude, and a vicious battle junkie. They confront their partners for a much-needed talk. Inspired by dishwasher1910's RWBY Grimmverse fan art.

I don't own RWBY – ownership rights go to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.

"The Grimmfolk" One-Shot Excerpt:

Problems and Perspectives with Partners

Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna made for one of the unlikeliest of pairs that ever walked the halls of Beacon Academy as they anxiously strode toward their dorm.

"So, we're really doing this, right?" came Weiss's address to Blake as she sought both confirmation and solace in their mutual endeavor.

One, a rich Human blancette heiress who was the winter season picture of the prim and proper Atlesian high society, and the other a near-scandalously clad brunette Faunus hiding both her heritage and former terrorist allegiance from her teammates.

"We just talked about it," Blake's sigh showed that she knew Weiss had a feeling of trepidation, but it also helped to cover up her own.

The first shorter than the second, the other wearing black with white in contrast to the first's soft blues and rebellious red, the only commonality the two appearing to possess being their youthful womanhood.

"I know," Weiss huffed. "I'm just making sure you don't run away from your responsibilities, either."

For all their differences, however, they had one thing in common, which even now drove them forward with shared purpose.

"Just remember Weiss," Blake teased as the two came upon their dorm room door, "they can smell fear."

"No we can't," a chipper voice brought up behind them.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Weiss screamed as she leaped into Blake's arms. "RUBY! Don't scare me like that!" she screeched, glaring daggers at her partner and leader both, Ruby Rose.

"Sorry, Weiss," Ruby apologized, sheepishly pushing her pointer fingers together. "But Blake had been showing me a lot of tricks lately on how to be stealthy and seeing the two of you together walking back and talking to each other like you were super-secret spies in a secret conspiracy felt too good to pass up the chance."

"Sorry Ruby, but I knew you were there the whole time," Blake calmly admitted.

"Drat," Ruby snapped her fingers in frustration.

"WHAT?" Weiss exclaimed, jumping out of Blake's arms at the betrayal. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"To help you loosen up, for later," Blake replied, making a quick glance at Ruby for Weiss to see.

Weiss could only pinch her eyebrows in frustration at Blake's logic before turning and accusingly pointing at Ruby.

"And you! I don't care how much you Changelings are drawn by the…" she swiveled her hand as she thought of the right word, "sensation of other people's negative feelings, but that does NOT give you license to make me exude even more of them for your enjoyment. I don't enjoy getting angry, embarrassed, scared, or any one of a whole host of other bad feelings you make me feel EVERY DAY! WH-"

"Weiss," she felt Blake put her hand on her shoulder, cutting off her rant and drawing her attention. "Not helping," directing Weiss back to her partner.

Ruby Rose, being a fifteen-year-old girl studying to be a Huntress at Beacon Academy and a Grimmfolk, was a unique mix of childlike innocence and body horror.

She was athletically lithe, but not petite like Weiss, being slightly taller and fuller, with boyishly short black hair with red highlights, dressed in a bright red riding hood over a black dress with a flared combat skirt held by a red corset and black leggings with tall black boots with red laces. What little skin that could be seen, however, was as white as sun-bleached bones, with thin black veins like cracks of marble, a pair of pale horns jutted up and out from her head, the right extending higher than the left, a charred black skeleton was exposed where the right sleeve would be on a normal girl's shirt.

And her eyes, bright golden irises set in ruby scleras, shone with the emotional pain of shame and wounded friendship that Weiss had just browbeaten her with.

Before Weiss could recover her composure, the Team RWBY dorm door crashed open, followed by heavy footsteps, the clink of metal, and a sinisterly eager voice:

"Hey, guys. Whatcha doin`?"

Weiss and Blake now turned to the partner of the Faunus, one Yang Xiao Long. Like her younger sister Ruby, she was a Changeling, but unlike her, fully embraced and presented herself as the very picture of the reason why the Changelings were called monsters, or, more commonly, Grimmfolk.

Her powerfully muscled marble-palette legs were bare from the top of her tall brown boots to the bottom of her very small black biker shorts, interrupted only by a pair of loops of blood red chain around each thigh. Her ample cleavage and solid midriff were put on blatant display with a long brown leather jacket that was only buttoned in the middle over a yellow tank top, with a loop of gold-painted chain that sat on her hips.

"Uh, Yang," Ruby spoke up, "I have this in hand-"

"Nah," Yang interrupted, swaggering forward. "Don't look like it."

Her left arm was wrapped in greyscale armor up to and about the shoulder, with a massive gunmetal gray gauntlet swallowing her forearm, and a similarly-styled brace on her bicep. Her right arm was an enormous black mass of Grimm flesh bigger than the rest of Yang herself, with bone spurs on the wrist and back of the elbow, and a set of spikes on her shoulder that rose from a few inches to more than a foot, while the hand on the end of the arm was enough wrap around an entire person's body by itself, with claws that a Sea Feilong would use for teeth.

But the picture of Yang Xiao Long was made complete in its horrific beauty by her head and face. Her throat was clasped by an iron manacle with a stylized red lock. A pair of identical horns sprouted upwards from the top of a head of jungle-like ash-blonde hair that fell to her thighs. And four flecks of black Grimm scales dusted her right cheek like freckles, next to a sharpened grin below a pair of scarlet orbs to present a face that thirsted for, anticipated, and expected a fight.

Blake transposed herself between Weiss and Yang, stalling the brawler's forward progress. She then drew upon her experience dealing with powerfully imposing partners before speaking.

"It is in hand," Blake stated, not even a quiver to be heard. "Weiss was only talking."

"Yeah?" An upturned eyebrow and a twitch in her lip gave away Yang's disbelief. "And there's a lot that bitches like Ice Bitch can do just by talking, kitty cat."

Blake flinched back, unaware before that moment that Yang knew.

"Yang," Ruby warned.

"Takes one to know one, right?" Blake blurted without thought.

"O-HO-HO!" Yang crowed. "You wanna go down that road?"

"Blake, what are you doing?" Weiss asked worryingly, backing away from the inevitable confrontation.

Blake went down that road. "What else am I supposed to think of you when you're always looking for some random excuse to pull some hapless soul over to the arena for 'sparring?'"

"Oh come on," Yang loomed over her partner as she threw her arms open, her right arm nearly scraping the opposite wall. "This is Beacon Academy! If they can't take it, they shouldn't be here!"

"Yang," Ruby growled.

"You won't even deny it?" Blake asserted.

"Why bother? It's the funnest thing to do around here!" Yang replied shamelessly.

"Then why bother becoming a Huntress?" Blake pressed. "Why don't you go downtown and be some mobster's hitman? Why not go to Anima and join forces with the Bandit Queen?"

Yang's smirk vanished, cold anger burned in her eyes, and drew her massive right arm back for a swing at her partner. "The FUCKdid you just-"

"YANG!" *WHUMP*

Yang, Blake, and Weiss all suddenly noticed that, in paying attention to the heightening tension between Yang and Blake, they had all failed to notice their leader surreptitiously approach Yang and slam her extended right arm to the floor with her own and drain it of energy so that it lay there twitching like a large, dying fish.

Ruby met her sister's stunned eyes with her own hardened gaze. "I said, I had it in hand."

"Ruby, I- but," Yang stammered.

"Yang," Ruby's face softened as she placed her left hand on Yang's cheek. "You don't have to do this anymore."

Blake and Weiss saw something break in Yang's eyes, some invisible film that the near-berserker had put up, and they could see the conflict in her eyes as the bond of sisterhood that she shared with Ruby changed shape in real time before their eyes. They then watched in silent astonishment as, for the second time in her life, Yang deferred to her sister's judgment, and bowed her head in affectionate submission to rub her horns against her sister's.

The two then turned to their partners, and Ruby then addressed them with a small smile on her lips: "I think you guys wanted to talk about something to us."

"Yes, we did," Weiss confirmed. Blake nodded to that.

"And it's about us being Grimmfolk, or about us being your partners?" Ruby asked.

A look was briefly shared between Weiss and Blake, then the latter responded, "Both, in a few ways."

Ruby silently nodded her head at that. "I guess we've all been putting this off for too long, huh?"

"That's what we figured, yes," Weiss affirmed. "Although, Blake and I were hoping to each talk to the two of you individually, partner-to-partner, as it were."

"Why?" Ruby asked.

"Because," Blake answered, "my issues are exclusively with Yang, and Weiss's are, mostlyexclusively with you, Ruby."

"Mostly?" Yang eyed Weiss suspiciously.

Weiss curtly responded, "You are not the first to call me Ice Bitch, and though it's unlikely, I would prefer you to be the last."

"Fair enough," Yang admitted.

After a moment of awkward silence, Ruby spoke. "Alright then, I guess we'll do as you guys have suggested. Was there anywhere in particular you wanted to talk?"

"Professor Port's classroom is near enough by," Weiss said. "You and I can talk there."

"Okay," Ruby turned to Yang and Blake. "You guys can have the room to yourselves if you like."

Blake blushed at Ruby's unintended suggestion.

"Sure, just, Blake" Yang snickered. "Just let me get some energy back into my thing," fidgeting her right arm, "and brought to an appropriate size before we have some pillow talk, 'kay?"

Blake's blush bloomed as brightly as Yang's bloody irises.

"OKAY RUBY!" Weiss embarrassedly shouted, as she rushed, grabbed Ruby, and began dragging her away. "LET'S GO BEFORE I LISTEN TO ANOTHER WORD OUT OF YOUR SISTER'S MOUTH!"

"Another word!" Yang called, as Weiss and Ruby zipped down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.

The two partners, left alone with each other, stood for a moment in yet more awkward silence, something Blake mentally noted was probably going to be a common theme for both pairs' discussions.

As the excess flesh of Yang's arm began turning to ash, she gestured to the still-open dorm room door, saying, "Shall we?"

"Yes," and Blake walked in, Yang following and closing the door right after.

-W+R-

After shutting the door behind them, Weiss allowed herself a few moments to take deep breaths and purge her mind of the filthy thoughts that Yang had put in her mind. Once that was done, she looked to Ruby to find the girl's earlier cool confidence gone, and nervousness had taken its place. The slight sheen of sweat on the tips of her fingers was insufficient to betray her own to a normal observer.

"So, Weiss," Ruby started. "Um, what's wrong with me that you have a problem with?"

Weiss suddenly got the feeling that she was not the first person Ruby had asked this question, and it hurt. "I guess, well, I would like to say not so much wrong with you, as wrong with what you're doing."

-B+Y-

Blake sat in a chair she placed next to the bookshelves between the two bunk beds, facing Yang as she lay on her bed on the bottom bunk, staring up at hers. Thankfully, she had (mostly) put Yang's words out of her head, so that she could focus on Yang as she was now. The powerful fighter that she had only recently been partnered with was uncharacteristically quiet and serious, looked pensive even. Blake didn't need to be a genius to know that Yang's earlier interaction with Ruby was still sinking in.

"Yang," she started. "There are some things we need to talk about."

"Heh, not the first time," Yang replied, turning to face her. "But I have a feeling it's a different kind of personal for you."

-W+R-

"What I'm doing?" Ruby asked.

"In our very first class of the year," Weiss elaborated, "you spent a good chunk of the first ten minutes doodling in your notebook, snickering in my ear, making stupid faces, and generally making a mockery of the academy, the professor, and bothering me throughout the whole thing!"

"To be fair," Ruby pointed out, "it's Professor Port."

"Well I know that now," Weiss agreed. "But it was still childish and unbecoming of a team leader, and when I stepped up to face the Boarbatusk, you pestered me with things I already knew."

"You looked like you were struggling, and I was just trying to helpful and supportive, like a partner and team leader is supposed to do." Ruby defended.

"Alright, maybe I took your advice the wrong way," Weiss admitted, "But that's only part of it. No matter what I do, or where I go, whenever you're there, ever since we met in front of Beacon on Orientation Day, you've been clingy, badgering me with inane things to talk about, and just overall trying too hard to be nice to me."

"Oh," Ruby was crestfallen.

"Every morning, you insist on getting my coffee," Weiss listed. "You offer to carry my books whenever we go to class, you ask if you ask if can help with maintenance on Myrtenaster, you've made my bed for me twice now-"

"That does sound a little ridiculous when you put it like that."

"And also, painting nails?" Weiss continued. "Cute boys? Shopping? Slumber parties? Could your chosen topics of conversation be anymore stereotypically girly and childish?"

"I'm sorry, Weiss," Ruby apologized. It's just, it's just…"

"'It's just,' what?" Weiss asked. "I understand you want to be my friend, but why are you going so over the top to be my friend?"

"I did it because you were lonely."

-B+Y-

Blake said, "I first met some back home in Kuo Kuana, in Menagerie. I was too young to remember a lot of the uproar around the Merlot Raid and your appearance, but I did grow up alongside Grimmfolk, including those whose families either moved there to escape the ostracization, or were simply abandoned. So I have seen all of what Grimmfolk can be like, unlike Weiss, who probably never met one of you until she came to Beacon."

"Well, I figured that much about Weiss," Yang conceded, "but what exactly are you getting at by saying you have more experience with our kind than her?"

"I have seen the good, the bad, and the mundane of what a Grimmfolk can be like as a person," Blake said. "I knew one who directed his destructive impulses into making all manners of mischief, and was a joy to spend time with, whenever he wasn't being an incorrigible pervert. Another helped his family make a living by going deep into the Grimm-infested areas of the jungles to collect rare herbs, roots and fruits to sell in market, but was very insulting to almost everyone around him."

"Blake, you're dancing around your point," Yang pointed out.

"I also saw Grimmfolk at their worst," Blake stated. "I saw the ones who indulged or even surrendered to their Grimm Nature. A lot of them got into fights almost every day, with others and each other. More than one simply ran away to never come back, and the one that did, brought back a small horde with him. And he wasn't the last one I would see do that."

"Still not getting the complete picture here," Yang noted.

"So very often you remind of every negative stereotype people have about Grimmfolk," Blake accused. "You're brutish, rude, lewd, and are utterly addicted to fighting. And I have seen it too many times for it be a coincidence. I know what becomes of Grimmfolk like you: You become thieves, murderers, bandits, terrorists-"

"That's it!" Yang snapped her fingers in triumph before pointing her finger at Blake. "You were in the White Fang."

-W+R-

Large hallways of blue and white, devoid of sound, frequently broken by crisp footsteps, but by angry shouting too often.

Her elder sister, Winter, leaving hearth and home and her for military service.

A father without warmth or love, a mother without care, a brother without fondness, and the only comfort found in the company of a fatherly butler.

A stage, and a rhetorical question asked in song: Mirror, Mirror. Tell me something. Tell me who's the loneliest of all?

Weiss froze, as the emotional weight and meaning behind Ruby's words struck her and sank deep into her being, forcing her to recall many unpleasant memories.

"You did all that, because you thought I was lonely?" Weiss asked.

"Because I knew you were lonely," Ruby repeated.

"Y- You could, tell?" Weiss choked out. "That's something Changelings can do?"

"Well, not without some practice," Ruby explained. "We all can sense negative emotions, but it's not like we can just, tell the different ones all apart from the beginning. But I found out years ago that, if I concentrated hard enough, I could tell the difference between them. Fear, hate, sadness-"

"Loneliness,"

"You might have shown a lot of annoyance and frustration from how we first met, but that was all over you like a muddy coat. And it hurt to see you like that."

"Is that why you went looking for me in Initiation?" Weiss asked. "All that, so that you could be my friend, so I wouldn't be lonely?"

"I was lonely a lot growing up," Ruby reminisced. "I had very few friends in school or around Patch, and they almost never invited me to their houses and almost never accepted my invitations. Dad was busy a lot with Signal Academy and the farm, and Yang was always picking fights, going out by herself or with her friends and leaving me behind. Don't get me wrong, I have wonderful memories of the time the three of us spent together as a family, but the times where I didn't have anyone to be with were the worst."

Weiss was quiet after Ruby was finished, as she reflected on the new light that Ruby's explanation cast on all of her actions.

"You weren't just trying to help me out of my loneliness, you were also trying to escape your own."

"Yeah," Ruby admitted. "So, for what it's worth, I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable."

Weiss smiled. "Thank you, and I forgive you."

"Yay!" Ruby jumped for joy and then rushed to glomp Weiss in a hug. "Now that that is all behind us, we are going to be the best of friends, and the best pair of Huntresses in history!"

Weiss was still a little miffed at Ruby's sudden violation of her personal space, but she was willing to let it go. But then, she remembered something else, and extricated herself from Ruby's grasp.

"Yes Ruby, yes we will. But there's one more thing we need to address before that."

Ruby was perplexed. "What's that?"

"While I understand why you're like what you are with me, the way you are in the combat arena – it's like you're another person entirely. Could you explain that?"

-B+Y-

At first it was a protest over unfair prices. Then, one of the Faunus was shot – gods know who fired – and it was a riot.

Adam just killed a man. It was self-defense, and everyone cheered him. He looked happy.

The Grimmfolk with just led the attack on the mine owner's mansion with Grimm. They have sided with the literal enemies of mankind. She watched in horror as the building burned, and Adam laughed.

Blake was frozen in fear. Her veil of anonymity had now been completely ripped away, and her very freedom, if not her life, was at stake, and at the mercy of the monster of a partner who sat before her.

"What in the world made you think that?" she asked.

"I can't distinguish between negative emotions like my sister can," Yang crooned. "But I can read intensity just as well as anybody. I could tell you had something to get off your chest, what with hiding being a Faunus and all, and when you did, it spiked, and when you said terrorist, it finally clicked in my head."

"You don't strike me as a detective reader," Blake deflected.

"Didn't need to, but that's beside the point," Yang stood up and loomed uncomfortably close to Blake, who gripped her chair tighter in unconscious response. "You think I'm just like the scumbags in the Fang, don't you? Just another killer-to-be, but without the cause, am I wrong?"

Blake took a shuddering deep breath, then responded. "Have you ever looked at yourself when you get into a fight? Or even just when you egg someone on so you can have an excuse to start one? You look and act like a junky. You are addicted to fighting. If I saw you drinking blood, I would not be surprised.

"Yes, I was in the White Fang, and the way everyone around me in it devolved into monsters just like the Grimm is why I left them. I came to Beacon, so that I could get away from monsters like them. Monsters like you."

Yang was quiet, for a change, and simply held Blake's fearful gaze. Then she sighed, and sat back down on her bed.

"You're right, kinda. I never really wanted to be a monster, but it's all my fault that I am."

"What do you mean, 'your fault?'" Blake asked. "It's not your fault that Merlot kidnapped you and Ruby and turned you both into Grimmfolk."

"Actually, it is."

-W+R-

"You mean, when I go like this?" Ruby asked.

All emotion then just drained from her face, and her eyes seemed to become brighter and sharper as if some eldritch light had invaded them.

Weiss felt a chill down her spine, as if her partner had suddenly tossed off the remnants of her humanity and fully embraced the Grimm Nature that she and all the other Changelings had been cursed with. As if she could kill her just with a look of her terrible, golden eyes…

And then concern flashed across Ruby's face, and the moment passed as she reached out to comfort her partner.

Weiss stepped back in shock from her partner's arms, as if she were a Grimm set out to tear her apart.

Ruby withdrew and curled her arms around herself and shook as tears welled from her eyes at causing her partner fear.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!"

Watching Ruby transition from young girl to Grimm in human skin and back to a little girl again was giving Weiss emotional whiplash like she hadn't felt since Winter had left home. Even as her instincts screamed at her to either run from her as fast as she could or to stake her through the heart with Myrtenaster, her heart also ached at seeing the girl who tried so hard to be her friend in distress at the pain she had caused to her. For a moment, Weiss was caught between the two feelings, and didn't know what to do.

She decided to follow her heart, and stepped forward to be the one to wrap Ruby up in a hug.

"No, I'm sorry, for making you show me that," Weiss comforted.

Ruby sniffled, and returned the embrace. "No, I'm sorry for scaring you."

"Shut up you dolt and let me say sorry."

That caused Ruby to laugh a little bit, lightening up both of their moods. "Okay, Weiss. I forgive you."

"Thanks," she said, and then they separated.

"So, um," Ruby started. "Have you talked with Nora and Ren before?"

"Yeah," Weiss replied. "Blake and I talked to them about what it was like for them to be in a Human-Changeling Huntsman pair before we came to you two to talk."

"You have no idea how perfect the two of them are for each other," Ruby said. "I don't know what the two went through in the past, but I can tell that the two of them being together is the only reason they've made it this far in life. Nora is perfect in getting Ren to enjoy life and not just suppress his emotions all the time with his Semblance, and Ren's cool-headedness and Semblance are perfect for balancing out Nora's energy and keeping her Grimm Nature under control."

"Yeah, I can see that, and the two of them admitted as much to us," Weiss agreed. "Are you saying you wish you had someone like Ren in your life?"

"Not really, no," Ruby said. "More that, everyone has a dark side, but with Grimmfolk, it's, well, I wouldn't say louder… Pushier I think is a better word. While anybody can have the idea about hurting someone or breaking something, for us it comes more easily. Insults come more naturally to say, impulses to hit back when hit are stronger, and just staying in a negative mindset is so much easier."

"I had heard something to that effect about Changelings back in Atlas," Weiss said. "Basically, while everyone is capable of doing bad things and becoming a bad person, being a Changeling means that going from bad to worse is made a lot easier."

"It's ugly, but it's true," Ruby admitted. "And the worst part is, we all have to make some kind of concession to our Grimm Nature, because otherwise it grows stronger, making your head fuzzier and foggier, and making it even easier and easier to just, lash out at someone, anyone, hurt them any way you can in order to get its fill of pain and destruction."

"So you let it out when you fight," Weiss noted. "You let it help you in combat so that you can keep it held down outside of combat when it would get in the way."

"Yeah," Ruby said. "And it's why I don't enjoy fighting other people, because then I have to make sure I don't hurt them more than I actually want to."

"And what if it's someone you have to fight?" Weiss asked.

"Then I hope that person isn't Merlot," Ruby said darkly.

-B+Y-

Blake was stunned, and couldn't help but to lean forward on the edge of her seat as Yang recounted her tale.

"When I was four, I lost my mom, Summer Rose. She was a Huntress and died while on a mission. While everyone was grieving, I overheard from my dad that while she was Ruby's biological mother, she wasn't mine. I found the proof in an old photo he kept hidden in one of his desk drawers. All I could think about was that I had another mother out there. Someone who could take Summer's place and be Ruby and I's mom. So I snuck out one day with the picture, a wagon, a bag of food, and my little sister, sleeping in the back. I wandered in the woods for hours, utterly lost and terrified, before coming upon an old cabin.

"It was there when Merlot's Grimm grabbed us."

Blake gasped.

"I barely remember anything about our time there," Yang curled in on herself, acting far more vulnerable than Blake had ever seen her be. "But there were lots of screaming. The other kids, mine, Ruby's. Injections that put me to sleep or put poison in my veins. A black pool made of pain. The only comforts I had were that I got to share a cage with Ruby, and that we didn't freeze when we had to sleep.

"But the worst part for me was when she came."

"She?" Blake inquired.

"Right before the rescue, a Huntress came. I woke up when I heard her fighting and killing Merlot's Grimm. At one point, she walked by our cage, and I got to see her. It was her. The woman in the photo. It was my mom. I was happy, and filled with hope, that our family could be whole again. So I reached out and called to her."

"Mommy!" she cried, desperately trying to grab onto her for a hug.

She turned, startled, and their eyes met. She had red eyes, and long black hair, and she could kill monsters just as well as Mom could. She didn't know if she could bake cookies, but right now she couldn't care less about cookies. Just so long as she had-

The woman turned, and walked away.

"Mommy?"

Yang didn't know what was happening.

"Mommy?!"

This was wrong.

"Mommy!?"

She was supposed to be their mother.

"Mommy come back!"

She was supposed to take care of them.

"Don't leave me, Mommy!"

She was supposed to love them.

"Mommy please!"

But she was leaving them. Again.

"MOOOOMMMMYYYYYY!"

*Sniff* Blake blinked away the tears in her eyes as Yang finished recounting the memory. Listening to that, suddenly everything about the young woman before her made sense, and her heart ached as she gained new appreciation for her partner, who forced herself to recall the worst moment of her life, all so that Blake could understand her.

Yang continued. "Not long after she left, the Merlot Raid began, and the rescue party arrived, but it was too late for us. Our Mom died. Dad failed to protect us. And the only person who could fix our broken family chose to run away to Sanus, to be a bandit."

Blake's emotional roller coaster plunged again. "You mean, your mother joined forces with the Bandit Queen?"

Yang's eyes burned bright with hate, something Blake was surprised to recall never seeing in them before today. "No. My mother is Raven Branwen. Head of the Branwen Tribe.

"She is the Bandit Queen"

-W+R-

"What do you mean by that?" Weiss asked nervously.

"Do you even need to ask?" Ruby growled. "Me, Yang, every one of the children he kidnapped, he turned us into monsters! He ripped us away from our homes and families, and some of us never got to go back to either, and some of us who did ended up losing both anyway because of what he did to us! Dad nearly worked himself to death taking care of us, Yang was nearly taken away from us from how often she got into fights for my sake, we even nearly lost the house once or twice!"

Weiss was startled when Ruby suddenly grasped the front of her coat and stared into her eyes with a soul-wracking gaze filled with sorrow and vengeance.

"For all that the Kingdoms and Academies say they need our help trying to protect people because we can command the Grimm to stay out of the Kingdoms and villages, too many people are afraid that we're just going to snap, turn on them and become just like the Grimm that Merlot shoved into our bodies!"

Ruby buried her head in Weiss's chest as tears streamed from her eyes.

"I don't want to be a Grimm, Weiss. I want to be a normal girl, with normal knees. I want to make as many happy memories as possible, and help as many people as possible make as many as they can."

The smell of a batch of cookies fresh from the oven, the chocolate chips melting in her mouth to give her unimaginable pleasure as Daddy finally got Mommy's recipe right.

Playing tag in the park with Yang and a couple of brave children as Dad spread a blanket and opened a basket filled with sandwiches, lemonade, and strawberries.

Saying goodbye to her father, as she joined Yang to get on the airship to Beacon Academy.

"But if I meet Merlot, I don't know if I can hold back the monster inside," Ruby shook as Weiss took her in her arms again. "I don't know if I will want to.

"If I would ever be me again if I did.

"But if I never meet him, then how can I ever make sure he understands, pays, for all of the pain he's caused everyone?"

-B+Y-

At some point, Blake found herself sitting next to Yang on her bed, laying her arm across her shoulders to offer her comfort.

"After that woman abandoned us," Yang spat, "all I had left in my life was Ruby, and my Dad. But her leaving us made me afraid of and hate Dad for years, which I hate her for almost as much as her leaving us in the first place, because he deserved none of trouble and pain I put him through in that time. I nearly ran away again, if Ruby hadn't convinced not to.

"Ruby has been my one constant for all these years, and whenever anyone in or out of school picked on her, I would lose it. I got smarter over the years in how I picked my fights, and it even got a little embarrassing as we got older and Ruby got better at protecting herself, but by then, I had decided at some point that I liked the fighting."

Yang turned to Blake, her gaze softer than it had ever been when she had looked at her. "But do you want to know the main reason why I fight? It's just like with an alcoholic drowning himself with beer: I do it to forget. Forget about all the shit I pulled that put my family in trouble, forget about the piece of shit who gave birth to me, and forget that in a childish pique, I ruined the lives of everyone in my family."

Her piece finally said, Yang slumped forward to almost collapse in on herself, propped up by her elbows on her knees. Blake kept quiet, and just rubbed her partner's back up and down to show her newfound care for the young woman, who she almost dared now to consider her friend(?).

"I'm sorry for what I said to you earlier," Blake apologized, "and for the awful things I called you."

"I'm sorry for always riling you up," Yang sat back up to look at her, "and for being such a stupid asshole of a partner."

Blake smiled. "I forgive you."

Yang smiled back. "You too."

The two of them put an arm across each other's shoulders in acknowledgment and trueborn fellowship.

"So, Yang," Blake spoke. "If I might pry, what will you do when you see your mother again?"

"That bitch," Yang emphasized as she slid her arm off Blake's shoulder, causing her to copy the action. "I am going to absolutely fuck up. I will tear apart her precious tribe, break her over my knee, and then find some rotten hole where I can just forget about her forever and where she will be left as abandoned and alone as she made me forever."

Yang looked to Blake. "What's it to you?"

"At some point, she will need to be brought to justice for everything she's done," Blake said. "And you are going to need all the help you can get when you go."

Yang looked her up and down, and then smirked at her friend. "Gonna need some work, but I think you'll do."

"Oh, I think I'll more than do," Blake smirked back at hers.

-W+R-

"Ruby," Weiss addressed.

The Grimmfolk girl looked up at her friend.

"I don't know if you ever will face Merlot, or if you will lose yourself to your Grimm Nature out of vengeance. But let me tell you this."

Weiss then surprised Ruby by grasping her right hand and held it between her own as she looked her straight in the eye.

"No matter what happens, if and when that day comes that you have to face that man, I promise you, that you will not face him alone."

Ruby's eyes widened in astonishment. "Really?"

"Yes, really," Weiss affirmed. "When you face that man down, I will be there with you, as your partner and friend, to help you fight your battles against the monsters around you, and inside you."

Ruby's eyes watered again, and she sniffled her nose, before hardening her gaze, and bringing her other hand to grasp Weiss's. "And I promise, Weiss, that when I face him, I will not face him alone, and shall do everything I can as your leader, partner, and friend to protect you from all that would harm you."

"Agreed," Weiss declared.

"Agreed," Ruby confirmed.

And at that moment, a beautiful friendship was born.

"Wow," Weiss blushed as she let go of Ruby's hand. "That was really corny."

"Yeah," Ruby agreed. "But it was the truth."

"Maybe, but we are not telling your sister about it," Weiss warned. "We would never live it down."

"Don't worry bestie," Ruby drew her fingers across her mouth in a zipping motion. "My lips are sealed."

The two then shared a giggle, and left together to return to the dorm.

A/N: Please leave your honest opinions in your reviews.