Another chapter done. 7 is pretty much done as well except for a few minor things. Anyways Rooster Teeth owns everything except OCs.
After the debacle with his mother and Ruby Nathan got her back to Beacon and returned home. His parents were now under the impression they had slept together no matter how much he denied it. Ruby also texted him about the teasing from her teammates when they saw her come in wearing Nathan's clothes. She even mentioned that Yang was about to set out to kill Nathan until Ruby explained what happened with the weather and clothes getting wet.
For awhile Nathan and Ruby mostly just texted each other and sent memes or pictures to each other. She mostly was busy with school work and training with her team or doing small missions. Nathan kept himself busy with working at the shop and tinkered with his rifle in his off time.
Since fall started it became necessary for Nathan to rake the leaves produced by the tree in their small backyard. He was just finishing up raking the latest batch of the red leaves when something of a different shade of red jumped into the pile yelling "WEEEEEEEE!"
Nathan knew it could only be Ruby, sure enough he saw her up to her shoulders in the middle of the partially scattered leaf pile. "Hey Nate!" She said waving.
He facepalmed, "Hey Ruby, I was almost done you know."
"I know and it made such a good cushion to land on." She replied smiling as she got up. Ruby wasn't wearing her usual black and red dress but opting for a more causal blue jeans and red hoodie though she still had her trademark cloak on.
"You look different." Nathan said with a raised eyebrow.
She started to rub the back of her head. "Yeah, it's laundry day and this was all that I had left because I don't normally wear stuff Yang picks out for me."
"It looks good on you…though I like your regular look more." Nathan said nervously scratching his cheek.
"I do too, pants are so confining sometimes compared to a combat skirt." She said as she twirled in a circle. This caused Nathan to notice how much the pants clung to Ruby's body when her back was to him giving him a good view of her behind.
"Well uh, whatcha doing here?" He asked as he started to rake up the leaves again.
"I wanted to see you silly. I've been so busy with school we haven't got to hang out in a while. So what are you doing when you're done with this." Ruby said looking at him expectantly.
"Not much now, was going to work on my rifle some but now that you're here looks like that's not happening." He said making a small grin.
"Who says? I can help you with that." She stated with her hands on her hips.
"I suppose you can, I'm just testing out ice and electric dust grenades I cooked up today."
"Ok, maybe we can work on my baby too." She said patting Crescent Rose stowed on her lower back.
When they got to the workshop Nathan picked up the pulse rifle and several of the grenades he wanted to try out. Unlike the early fire dust rounds that were identified by a red color these were a light blue or yellow. He loaded the ice dust rounds into the grenade launcher's magazine tube at the bottom of the pulse rifle and racked the pump chambering a round. "Which target you think?" He asked Ruby.
"Maybe the human targets?" She answered pointing at a couple of them on the range.
Nathan pointed the rifle at them and fired off a round, the target exploded with small snow and ice particles freezing two targets in a thin layer of ice. He racked the pump and fired again, the human targets were coated with another layer of ice from the dust round.
"Seems repeated shots are more effective than individual." Observed Ruby rested her chin on her hand in thought.
"Maybe need to rework the formula." Nathan said mostly to himself, making a note for later.
He then loaded up the lightning dust rounds. "Which one now Ruby?"
"I wanna see what it does to the beowolf."
He aimed and fired, the round hit and electricity surged over the target's form for a few seconds before it jumped to the nearby targets and covered them with electrical sparks for a split second and were gone.
"I wonder how it jumped to the other targets, maybe because they're steel targets? Could be handy if I ever had to fight Atlas combat robots or mechs I guess."
"Could be useful against aquatic Grimm, so long as you're not in the water with them." Ruby said with a giggle.
"Heh, so you said you wanted to work on your weapon?" Nathan asked putting his rifle back on the work table.
"Yeah, I think I may have bent the barrel slightly during a mission because it keeps hitting far right even after I adjusted my scope as far as I can to compensate for it."
"Let's see, take a few shots on the long range."
At the right end of the range there was a tunnel that angled slightly underground in a slope for a distance of 300 meters. Ruby equipped Crescent Rose in its sniper configuration and aimed at one of the two bullseye targets down range and fired. Nathan watched her shot hit the tunnel wall more than halfway down the range.
"Do it again." He said. Ruby fired again with a similar result.
"May I see your weapon?" He asked her which she handed the sniper-scythe to him.
Nathan unloaded and first checked the scope to be sure it was secure on its mount, no budge. Then he disassembled the weapon and looked down the barrel, there was no bulges or damaged rifling he could see so he took it over to a laser scanning device that could detect any damage he could not with his eyes. He scanned it along the barrel's length and it gave back a response that it was indeed bent. The bend was difficult to spot by eye and it wouldn't have too much of an effect on accuracy at closer distances but would become more apparent the further out you fire the weapon.
"Well you were right in it being bent, just barely." He said.
"Hmm, think you can make a new one for me?" Ruby asked flashing the puppy eyes.
He sighed "I hate when you do that." Nathan said as he grabbed a barrel blank to start shaping it to match Crescent Rose's profile.
"Whatever do you mean?" Ruby says in mock innocence.
Nathan didn't say anything causing Ruby to make a small laugh as he got to work on the barrel. The process was faster than the first time so it only took him a couple hours to complete the part and install it into Ruby's weapon. "Wanna do the honors?" He offered allowing her to make the first shots with a virgin barrel.
"Sure, but I'll need to reset my scope first." She said as he handed her Crescent Rose.
Ruby set up and fired several rounds through the rifle mode with the shots landing consistently in the lower left of the bullseye target. She adjusted the scope and fired again, she hit the center of the target now. After storing her weapon she hugged Nathan taking him by surprise. "Thanks Nate, my baby is back to perfection!"
He wrapped his arms around her. "S-sure thing Rubes."
"Rubes?" She said looking up at him while also realizing she just hugged Nathan making her blush.
"Don't like it?" He asked as he let her go.
"Its not that, just didn't think you'd have a nickname for me."
"What about Little Red?"
"Rubes it is." She answered sighing. "Well I have to get back, Weiss wanted to study with me in the library to make sure my grades don't drop…again."
"I'll walk you there…Rubes."
"You're going to make me hate that name aren't you Nate?"
On the way to the dropship launchpads they stopped to grab some hotdogs from a street vendor to eat on the walk over so they munched more than talked for a portion of the walk. Ruby mostly chatted about how school was going and some of her shenanigans at Beacon. They then decided next weekend to do another spar as Nathan wanted to get some training in and going against Ruby was less intimidating as a professional teacher with her causal attitude.
"I was wondering, when do I get my clothes back?" Nathan asked as they boarded the bullhead.
"Eventually, they're getting washed with my clothes."
"You aren't using my shirt as nightwear are you?"
"NO!...Maybe." Ruby answered pushing her two index fingers together nervously.
"Heh, fine you can keep the shirt but can I at least get the pants back?"
"Alright, they're way too big for me anyway." She said when they sat down for the flight.
The trip was mostly normal, the two watched some UnrememberedArms videos on Nathan's scroll until the bullhead touched down at Beacon's landing pad. When the two were walking towards Ruby's dorm building she was unusually quiet for most of the walk only giving one or two word answers when he was talking to her. He looked over at her and Ruby seemed to be thinking about something and her face was a light shade of red and he thought she might be sweating a little.
"Ruby, you ok?" He asked when they were in front of the dorm.
"Uhhh." Ruby stuttered before suddenly jumping forward and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "ThanksforfixingCrescentRoseI'llseeyoulaterbye!" The girl disappeared in a flurry of rose petals towards her dorm.
Nathan placed a hand on the cheek Ruby kissed and for some reason he got the sense he was being watched and could smell ozone. "Don't think its going to storm?" He muttered to himself about the clear skies.
Gripes? Bitches? Complaints? Let me know.