Notice Me, Ruby!

Chapter 23: Partner Problems

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT RUBY'S GOING TO BECOME PART OF OUR TEAM!" Isabella yelled happily as she and her teammates were walking towards their dorm. Elaine had just told her teammates about the possibility of Ruby becoming a member of their group and the others had been quite delighted. "Seriously, this is like the best thing EVER! We get to have such an awesome extra person in our group! Our team is going to be envied by all others!"

"I share your excitement, Issie, but tone it down, would you? I'm sure my ears have been damaged by your screaming," Elaine said. "Besides, it hasn't yet been decided that Ruby will join our team. There is still the possibility that she goes to some other group."

"Don't you even DARE suggest that! You know as well as I do that Ruby belongs with us and no one else!" the dark-skinned girl said while pointing a finger at her team leader. "Also, how could you not tell us about something like this sooner!? Withholding such information from your teammates is treason!"

"Hey, I wanted to make sure that it was certainly going to happen before telling you, alright!?" the redhead defended herself. "It's only after meeting that blondie from Ruby's team that I decided to tell you all. If Ruby's other two teammates are anything like Yang, she can't leave that team fast enough. Leaving her with those three is only going to stunt her growth as a Huntress."

"I do have to agree that leaving Ruby with those three is not a good idea," Oliver said. "Despite everything she has achieved, those three do not show any respect towards Ruby and even badmouth her behind her back. A team that doesn't respect their leader is bound to fall."

"I-I agree!" Nilo added. "T-Those three do not deserve to have Ruby in their team anymore! T-They have broken the trust between themselves and their leader, w-which is beyond repair at this point!"

Hearing her teammates' support for the idea of Ruby joining their team made Elaine smile. While she already knew that there wouldn't be any objections, it was still great to see just how enthusiastic they all were. After everything Ruby had been through with her team, she deserved to get into a team that truly respected and appreciated her.

"Glad to see you're all supporting this," the team leader said with a smile. "Now we just have to make sure that Ruby gets placed in our team and not some other group."

"Well of course we would support this!" Isabella yelled happily. "I believe this calls for a celebration! The pizzas are on me, people!"

As the members of team LION went on with their premature celebration, they failed to notice a couple of third-year students that had heard their conversation.

Next day, the members of team RWBY were in the cafeteria, eating breakfast. Ruby had finally been allowed to return to classes and had joined her team at the table.

However, things weren't exactly normal with the four girls, which was something Weiss and Blake had quickly noticed.

"…Blake, do you have any idea what's wrong with those two?" Weiss whispered to the cat faunus while looking at the two girls sitting across from them at the table. "I know things have been weird with them for quite some time now, but I think they might be at their weirdest now."

"Weiss, if I knew what was wrong with them, I would have tried to do something about this already," Blake whispered back to the heiress. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I want to get involved in whatever it is that's going on between those two."

The thing the monochrome duo was referring to was the strange behavior between Yang and Ruby, especially when it came to the blonde girl. Right now, Yang's face was completely red as she kept picking at her food with a fork, which had turned her bacon hamburger into mush. The brawler was also doing her best to look away from Ruby. The redhead was acting mostly normally, except for the fact that she was obviously bothered by the older girl's behavior. She was trying her best to eat her food, while glancing at Yang every now and then.

'Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! This feels so awkward!' Yang thought to herself. 'I can't help but keep replaying what happened yesterday in my head over and over again! The way I was touching her and the fact that I almost… almost… I CAN'T EVEN SAY IT! JUST WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!?'

Meanwhile, Ruby was having her own thoughts regarding the blonde girl.

'What is up with her now? I know that Yang can be weird, but this is just going above and beyond all expectations!' the redhead wondered. 'Honestly, it's times like this that I wonder if she was dropped when she was born! Although, that would explain a lot…'

Not wanting to deal with the awkward atmosphere any longer, Ruby quickly finished her breakfast and left the table. The three older girls were left behind, staring after their leader.

"Okay, this is just too ridiculous," Weiss said with a sigh as she got up from her seat. "Blake, would you mind and try speaking to your partner about what's going on? I'll go after Ruby and see what I can do."

"Didn't I just say that I didn't want to get involved in this?" the raven-haired girl asked with a slight frown.

"Like it or not, we are already involved with this, so it can't be helped," the white-haired girl replied as she was getting ready to leave. "Now how about you try being a good teammate and deal with your partner?"

Blake could only groan as she was left alone with Yang. It seemed like there was no way for her to run away from this problem now. The cat faunus turned to look at her partner, who was still blushing and mashing what used to be a burger.

"I take it that you're not going to simply tell me what's going on?" Blake asked.

"W-W-What are you talking about!?" Yang asked while trying to feign ignorance and even let out an obviously faked laugh. "There's nothing weird going on! Yup! Nothing that needs to be thought of or anything like that! There is absolutely nothing strange that had happened between me and Rubes when we were alone in the dorm yesterday!"

The raven-haired girl let out a deep sigh. She could already feel a headache coming.

Meanwhile, Weiss was walking through the hallways, trying her best to find Ruby. The younger girl was unfortunately quite fast on her feet even when she was simply walking, which made finding her more difficult for the heiress. Weiss did manage to eventually find her missing partner, but she wasn't alone.

Ruby was currently surrounded by the members of team CRDL, who didn't look like they were there to just have a friendly chat with the redheaded girl.

"We've heard that you've been working with a third-year team lately, Rose," Cardin said while blocking Ruby's path. "What's that all about? Your team got tired of you and hired them to babysit you? Or did you get the idea that you're too good to be with us first-years?"

"It's true that I've been working with a third-year team, but it's not because of the reasons you claimed," Ruby said while glaring at the bully. Normally, she would be able to take on all of them, but with her body in the state it was she wouldn't stand a chance. "Anyways, would you mind and let me-"

The young team leader was roughly shoved to the floor by Cardin, who had an evil smirk on his face, as did his teammates. The brown-haired boy even put his foot down on Ruby's back to prevent her from getting back up.

"Hey, we're not done with you yet, so you're not leaving," Cardin said. "Honestly, I don't see what's so good about you. Not only did you get accepted two years early, but now you're working with third-years? Just what kind of favors have you done to the headmaster and the other staff to pull this off? I think it's about time my team taught you a lesson ourselves."

As team CRDL was getting ready to hurt the defenseless girl, Weiss was watching the whole thing from behind a corner. As much as she wanted to go and help her partner, her options for doing this didn't seem all that good. If she had her equipment with her, she could hold her own against the bullies, but right now she didn't have anything on her. Charging at team CRDL with her bare hands wouldn't do anybody any good in this situation. Nevertheless, she still needed to come up with something to help Ruby before things got bad.

However, it seemed like someone else was going to save the redhead instead of Weiss.

"Hands off the girl!" a female voice shouted at the bullies. All eyes turned to see where the voice had come from and they saw a girl in Beacon uniform standing there, glaring at team CRDL.

"Huh? Who do you think you are, lady?" Cardin asked angrily, not liking that his fun was being interrupted.

"Who do I think I am?" the girl said, before suddenly grabbing the brown-haired boy by the head and smashing his face to the wall. "HOW ABOUT YOUR THIRD-YEAR SENIOR, YOU PUNK!?"

The other three members of CRDL were shocked by this third-year student suddenly taking out their leader and were about to run away, but their escape was blocked by the girls teammates who didn't look happy.

"Having fun bullying those who can't fight back?" one of the third-years asked, before he and the other two knocked out Cardin's teammates with a single punch each.

"Guys, are you ready?" the girl called out to her teammates while picking up the unconscious Cardin by the back of his shirt.

"Yeah!" one of the other third-years answered with each of them holding one of Cardin's teammates.

With each member of the third-year team now holding one of the bullies, they smashed the heads of team CRDL against each other with Cardin and Russel in the middle and Sky and Dove at the sides. While they obviously didn't kill the bullies due to their Aura protecting them, the members of team CRDL would be out cold for a while and would wake up with massive headaches.

"The bully sandwich is ready to be served!" the third-year team said happily in unison while holding up team CRDL before dropping them to the floor.

As this all happened, Ruby had been watching the whole spectacle unfold before her with wide eyes. Weiss was also surprised by what just happened. The two first-year students had no idea who these four new people were at all.

"T-Thank you," Ruby said, still in awe over what she had seen.

"Don't mention it," the girl that had taken down Cardin said with a kind smile while offering a hand to help the redhead get up. "People like them deserve a good beating over the crap they try to pull."

Ruby let out a small laugh as she got up with the unknown girl's help. Once she was up, she took a better look at the team that had helped her. It was clear to the scythe-wielder that these were third-years by their eyes. Not only were these students looking at her with kindness instead of the contempt and jealousy most first and second-years did, one could also see maturity and experience behind their gazes.

"I don't want to sound rude, but who are you guys?" Ruby asked. "I don't think I've ever met any of you before."

"Well, this is our first time meeting, so I'm not surprised by you not knowing us. Even though we have certainly heard plenty about you, you probably have never heard of us," the third-year girl who seemed to be the leader of the group explained. "I'm Dalia Saranov, leader of team DEUS. These are my teammates, Eric, Uzuto and Sarah."

"A pleasure to meet you all," the redhead said with a smile and even gave a small respectful bow to her saviors. "Thank you again for saving me, but I do have to ask one thing. What brought you all here? We usually don't see third or fourth-year students around here, let alone whole teams."

"That would be true, except we have a bit of a special reason to be here," Dalia answered. "You see, we came over here to see you."

"Me?" Ruby asked with surprise in her voice, getting nods from the older students. "I'm not sure I follow… I mean, what business could you all have with me?"

"That's simple! We were wondering if you would like to join our team for assignments and other work!" the older girl answered with a grin. "I mean, you've already been working on our level of stuff, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?"

"I-I'm honored, but this is a bit sudden," the young team leader said, completely taken aback. "Also, I'm not sure if I can do that. Not only am I not sure if I'm going to be working with third-years any longer, but I'm already kind of assigned to be with team LION."

"Oh, I know about that, but it's just unfair, you know?" Dalia said with an exaggerated sigh. "Not only does Elaine have Oliver on her team, who is great at studies as well as combat, but she already has a cute prodigy on her team through Nilo! Does she really need another great talent like you? I think it's only fair that you get placed with another-"

The rest of the third-year girl's words were cut off as a soda can hit her on the head. Dalia immediately turned to look where the attack had come from with fury in her eyes.

"OKAY, WHO HAS GOT THE BALLS!?" the third-year girl yelled angrily, as another team of third-years were making their way towards her. This time, it was a team that Ruby was familiar with, team LION. "…Ellie, I should have known…"

"Mind explaining just what the hell you're trying to pull here, D?" Elaine asked with anger in her voice. "I swear, the moment I let my guard down, vultures like you come flying down immediately."

"Well, I see no harm done in it. After all, even if you're the closest with Ruby here, nothing has been set in stone, right? I think it's only fair that she gets to see what else is available to her," Dalia said while glaring at the other team leader. "Besides, I think it's only a good thing that we came when we did. We did save Ruby from a group of bullies."

"Umm… Excuse me, what is all this-?" Ruby tried to ask, but the third-years were too focused on their argument.

"I appreciate you helping her out, truly, but I have my doubts it came completely from the goodness of your heart," Elaine said. "Also, do you really think Ruby would like to join your team? After all, if I remember correctly, MY team completely destroyed YOUR team in our last sparring match. I see no reason for her to downgrade when it comes to teammates."

"DOWNGRADE!? You've got some nerve saying that to me!" Dalia yelled with her face now red with anger. "Besides, your team is far from perfect! When was the last time you guys beat us in test scores!? Oh, that's right! NEVER!"

"THE TESTS QUESTIONS ARE JUST WAY TOO DIFFICULT! THAT'S WHY!" the redheaded third-year argued. "Besides, our team has the misfortune of being dragged down by Isabella!"

"HEY!" the dark-skinned girl yelled angrily.

Just when it seemed like the two third-year team leaders were going to start fighting, Oliver stepped up to them and lifted both girls up by the backs of their shirts, like he was a parent stopping two little children from fighting. Both girls looked at the tall boy, who had an annoyed look on his face.

"Would you two mind and stop?" Oliver asked angrily. "You're being a bad influence to our juniors."

"SHE STARTED IT!" both Elaine and Dalia yelled while pointing at each other.

"…Are you two six years old or something?"

Thanks to the berserker's interference, things managed to calm down between the two teams. The members of team DEUS left, even if their leader was unhappy about it, leaving team LION with Ruby.

"Sorry about that, Ruby," Oliver apologized to the young redhead. "Those four are kind of our "rivals", even though the rivalry is mainly between Ellie and their leader."

"It's okay, I guess…" Ruby said, still somewhat bewildered over what she had just witnessed. "But what was that all about in the first place? Why did Elaine get into an argument with that Dalia person?"

"Oh right, you don't know yet, do you?" Elaine said, realizing that the younger girl was still in the dark over the things happening around her. "We'll explain it to you as we go to your class, okay? That way we can keep you safe."

"Keep me safe? What is that supposed to mean?" the younger redhead asked, completely confused. "I know I'm still not fully recovered, but I doubt anyone else is going to be attacking me. Team CRDL is pretty much the only group that does stuff like that."

"While we'll be protecting you from other bullies, it is poachers that we are currently on the lookout for!" Isabella exclaimed loudly. "Like those four from team DEUS, we know there are going to be others coming after you!"

"Poachers? Just what is going on!?" Ruby said as her confusion only kept rising.

"Look, we'll explain it on the way," Oliver said with a sigh, feeling sorry for the young team leader. "Right now, I think we should start heading to your class, before you're late."

As Ruby and team LION began to make their way to the scythe-wielder's classroom, they noticed Weiss standing behind a corner. The heiress had been so surprised by all that she had just seen that she had forgotten to stay hidden.

"Weiss? Were you there this whole time?" Ruby asked with wide eyes. "But why didn't you…?"

"Are you freaking kidding me!?" Isabella yelled angrily while glaring at Weiss. "You mean to tell me that this whole time you've been standing there, doing nothing!? WHY THE HELL WOULDN'T YOU HELP YOUR PARTNER WHEN SHE'S BEING ATTACKED BY BULLIES!?"

"I-It's not like that!" the heiress tried to defend herself. "I just didn't know what I should do, that's all!"

"The way I see it, you knew exactly what you wanted to do," Elaine said with anger dripping from her voice. "You probably didn't think that Ruby was worthy enough to get help from "the great Schnee heiress", am I right? Or perhaps you wanted to watch her get beat up, since she has dared to be better than you? Can't have that, now can we?"

"THAT IS NOT-!" Weiss tried to defend herself, but was cut off by her partner.

"Yeah… That's probably what it was," Ruby said coldly, which shocked the white-haired girl. "What else should I expect from her? In her eyes, I'm beneath her family and shouldn't expect to be helped, even if she is my partner. That is just demanding too much of her."

Without even looking at Weiss, the young team leader began to leave with team LION soon following after her. The third-year students gave the heiress one last look of disgust before following their friend. Weiss had been frozen still from the shock she got from hearing Ruby speak so coldly, but managed to break from it upon realizing that she was walking away.

"Ruby, wait! I-!" the white-haired girl called after her partner, but was cut off again.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Ruby yelled at Weiss with tears falling from her eyes. "That is the one nice thing you can do to me, yet now you can't even do that!? Haven't you already done enough to me!?"

The heiress could only stand still and watch with wide eyes as the scythe-wielder walked away. Once Ruby was gone, Weiss tried to make sense of everything she had seen. Just what was going on between Ruby and all these third-year teams? And what did Ruby mean by what she had just said to her?

The white-haired girl hoped that things were going better with Yang and Blake.

While Weiss was contemplating things on her own end, Yang and Blake were in a secluded part of Beacon's backyard. The two girls were in an area that was covered by a good amount of trees and bushes, which gave them privacy from anyone that might walk past them. Even though most people were currently in their classes, Blake felt like it was a good idea to make sure that no one would eavesdrop on their conversation. Yang didn't seem like she was willing to speak in the first place, so this could at least make it a bit easier to pry information from her.

"So, Yang, are you going to tell me what's going on or are you just going to keep pretending?" the cat faunus asked with a hint of frustration in her voice. She really didn't want to go through this. "Let me remind you that we should currently be in class, so I'm doing you a rather big favor here."

"Nothing is wrong! I swear!" the blonde girl quickly replied. Her face was still red and she was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees with her back turned to her partner. "Besides, if we should be in class, we should be in class! We'll get yelled at, if we don't go there!"

Blake let out another frustrated sigh and turned away from her partner for a moment. She took a rubber toy mouse from one of her pockets that she had for moments like this. The toy mouse was a stress toy that when you squeezed it the mouse's eyes would bulge out. The raven-haired girl squeezed the toy a couple of times to calm her nerves, before putting it back in her pocket and turning her attention to Yang again.

"Yang, the reason I decided that we should skip class for this is because I know you won't be able to concentrate on your school work with the way you are right now," Blake explained. "Whatever it is that's bothering you, we need to solve it quickly or it will affect your studies from now on as well. I know this is going to be hard for you to let out, since I've had problems that I didn't want to talk about, but I ask you to trust me. The only way for me to help you is that you tell me what's going on between you and Ruby right now."

"That's easy for you to say! You have no idea just what I've just gone through!" the brawler argued. "I don't think I can EVER tell anyone what has happened!"

"Oh please! It can't be that bad!" the cat faunus said, not believing her partner. "I mean, what is that happened between you and Ruby? Did you guys reenact one of the scenes from my Ninjas of Love books or something?"

"Not… exactly, but kind of close…" Yang answered.

"…What?"

"You see, yesterday I noticed that Ruby was really tired, so I offered to give her a massage," the blonde girl began to explain. "I managed to convince her to let me do it, so I obviously began to massage her back."

"Okay? I don't see how any of this is bad, though," Blake said. "I mean, there is skin contact in a massage, but it isn't necessarily anything dirty. I don't see how this can be compared to my books."

"The massage was just the start," Yang said. "Soon after I had started, Ruby fell asleep. Since she had her back bare, I started to kind of inspect her body a bit closer. I checked out and touched her muscles, scars and bruises. And at the end, I went and almost kissed her while she was sleeping…"

"…Oh. Oh! Ohhhh…" Blake managed to say as she just processed what her partner had told her. Even the cat faunus' face turned red from what she had just heard.

Silence fell between the two girls, who were now both sitting on the ground with their backs against each other. Both girls' faces were red and their eyes were wide. Blake was also absentmindedly squeezing her toy mouse, hoping to calm herself down, but it wasn't working.

'Okay, let's think about this calmly and rationally. What happened between Yang and Ruby is obviously… weird, to say the least, but is it that bad of a thing? I mean, some of my favorite books have such relationships and they're much more graphic!' the raven-haired girl thought to herself. '…OH, WHO AM I TRYING TO FOOL HERE!? Yang basically admitted that she almost kissed her own sister! And I doubt it was anything completely innocent, like a kiss on the cheek or something of that nature! JUST WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IN THIS SITUATION!? WHY DID I HAVE TO BE YANG'S PARTNER!?'

"Judging by your silence, I'm guessing that you understand why I didn't want to talk about this! I'm honestly lucky that Ruby didn't notice what I tried to do!" Yang said. "I mean, we might not be actually related or anything like that, but we still grew up together like sisters, so I doubt this is completely fine!"

"…Hang on, WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!?" Blake yelled.

Author's notes: As you all can probably guess by the way this chapter ended that the next chapter will be about the explanation of the circumstances surrounding Yang and Ruby. Basically it will explain how they are not related. While I know that some of you won't be looking towards it, I think it's kind of inevitable that it happens in a story that has non-related Yang/Ruby as its pairing.

The scene where team DEUS took down team CRDL is a reference to a scene in Dorohedoro. If you don't know what that scene is, write "dorohedoro bully sandwich" in YouTube and you'll see what it's about. I'd also recommend checking out the series itself. I've read the manga and I found it to be pretty enjoyable.

A guest recently asked me about what I thought about volume 7's new characters. While I would be glad to give an opinion on that, I unfortunately haven't watched the whole volume yet. I've only seen only a couple of the episodes. This is mostly due to my own personal problems that I've had with the series for some time now. Let me just make clear that in no way do I have anything against people who watch the show. I have just recently been feeling uncomfortable about some of the things that are going on both with RWBY and Rooster Teeth themselves. I might at some point say more about it on my profile, but not here. The AN section is not for that.

Also, in response to Celestialfae's question, I'm currently not planning another Yandere story like the ones I've done. Not only do I not have an idea for one, but I also don't feel like working on another horror story for now after working on Dead by Roselight for so long.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this chapter and will check out the next one.

Until next time.

RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth.