Disclaimer - I don't own RWBY or this concept... Yada Yada.
Beta'd by DA Exodus
Well, that was easier...
-Chapter 5 Start-
The next day
"All right, we won't be doing any more physical training tonight." Qrow announced as Ruby finished her stretches. "I have something special for you tonight." With that he moved towards a crate that was sitting towards the edge of their clearing, it was locked with a scroll lock and looked strong enough to survive a bomb blast. Without much preamble he threw a collapsed weapon to her, clicking the only visible button it transformed.
It was a fairly complicated looking weapon, while sleek it had many slots built into the design, showing that it was capable of transforming, at the moment it appeared to be an assault rifle with a red dot sight on top. "{Observe}."
[Sentinel Series Modulus Prototype: Assault Rifle]
[Item Type - Weapon]
[Quality - Rare]
[Damage - Variable (Ap per shot and Type of Dust) 45 shots per battery]
[Range - Medium to Long]
[Current Dust - Gravity]
[150/150 Durability]
"A modular weapon?" She asked, looking the weapon over. Clicking a smallbutton on the forward grip the gun shifted. The gun seemed to pull in, becoming longer but thinner, the forward grip snapped down, turning from a grip that was slanted towards her into one that was perpendicular to the barrel. Curiously she had no information for this form of the gun. "I guess I need to observe every single form." She said, ignoring her Uncle again. "{Observe}."
[Sentinel Series Modulus Prototype: Shotgun]
[Item Type - Weapon]
[Quality - Rare]
[Damage - Variable (Ap per shot and Type of Dust) 1 shot, 30 shot spread, per battery]
[Range - Short]
[Current Dust - Gravity]
[150/150 Durability]
"Now it's a shotgun." She nodded, before pressing the button once more. This time the alteration was much more pronounced, the barrel extended again, becoming nearly three quarters of the guns length, the stock of the gun was beefed up, obviously trying to compensate for a more powerful shot. Finally the scope and the grip changed, the red dot sight being replaced by a small marksman's scope and the forward grip splitting down the middle and becoming a bipod. "{Observe}."
[Sentinel Series Modulus Prototype: Sniper Rifle]
[Item Type - Weapon]
[Quality - Rare]
[Damage - Variable (Ap per shot and Type of Dust) 1 shot per battery]
[Damage - Triple for headshots]
[Range - Long to Far]
[Current Dust - Gravity]
[150/150 Durability]
"If I put in enough Aura I could kill that Ursa Minor in one shot with this." She breathed looking at the weapon in slight awe she pressed the button one last time. This time the change was much larger, the stock of the gun all but disappeared, the barrel also retreated into the weapon until it was roughly a quarter of the size, even smaller than the assault rifle. The forward grip also retracted into the weapon, the button being the only part that remained. Finally the red dot sight made a return along the top. "{Observe}."
[Sentinel Series Modulus Prototype: Submachine Gun]
[Item Type - Weapon]
[Quality - Rare]
[Damage - Variable (Ap per shot and Type of Dust) 400 shots per battery]
[Range - Short to Medium]
[Current Dust - Gravity]
[150/150 Durability]
"This one would take all of my aura in just one minute of firing it." She gulped, the gun was so small yet so dangerous, this form was obviously meant to be used one handed. "I'm not going to use this until my wisdom is much higher…" She clicked the button once more, making the gun return to it's assault rifle form. Slowly she turned to her expectant Uncle, the man looking amused as she went over the gun.
Ruby almost teleported over to the man, slamming into his chest and wrapping him in a massive hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She almost screamed the last one, her voice turning into an excited, high pitched squeal.
"I guess you like it." He chuckled, the girl refusing to let go of him. "I had to call in quite a few favours to get that." He admitted before he began trying to pry the girl off of him. "It'll be a good starting point before you build your own weapon."
Soon enough Ruby had let go of him, wanting to try the gun out. "Now this gun doesn't use ammo in the traditional sense, it absorbs aura from the wielder, focusing it through a dust crystal to create the bullets." He had taken the gun back and was pointing out the things she needed to know, currently he was pointing at the rear grip, which was slightly stockier than what you would see in a normal gun. "This is actually an aura battery, any aura placed into it will be held for one minute before dispersing, the gun uses the battery to fire. It will take a set fraction of the aura, depending on the weapons form, meaning the more aura that is inside the battery, the more aura will be taken."
"So, if I put 45 Ap into the battery and fired it in assault rifle form, it would use 1 Ap per round?" She clarified, getting a nod in response. "And if I put 90 Ap into it, each bullet would use 2 Ap?"
"That's the general gist of it." He admitted, Ruby was now sat on the grass listening to his lecture on how to use the gun. "I don't think I need to tell you that the more aura in a shot, the more damage you'll cause." He got a nod in response, allowing him to continue. "So, this follows on to each different form. All of the battery is used to fire the sniper form just once, the shotgun only fires once but it splits the aura into 30 separate shots to act as the spread, finally the SMG form divides it into 400 shots but fires all 400 in less than a minute."
"Okay, that's not anywhere near as bad as I thought." She admitted sheepishly. "I thought it would take 1 Ap per shot."
"You're the only person who has a way of quantifying aura." Qrow admitted, sounding impressed by it. "The most scientists have figured out is how to see how much a person has left when compared to their maximum." Seeing Ruby's confused look he sighed. "We can only say that, so and so has 20% of their maximum left, not each individual point like you can."
"Oh." Ruby let out a sound of understanding at that. "So they can't put limits in it like I would be able to."
"No they can't, or at least nowhere near as precise as you could." He nodded before turning back to the weapon. "The only thing left that I can think of is that you can't put any aura into the battery while it's firing and the more aura that is put into the battery the longer you'll have to wait for it to cool down."
"Okay, so I need to wait after firing before I can put anymore aura into it." She nodded, understanding that much. "Do I get to use it now?" She was getting impatient now, wanting to play with her new gun.
"Ruby, this is a weapon, not a plaything. I don't mind you being excited to use it but you need to take this seriously, if not, i'll need to take it back." Qrow threatened, tightening his grip on the weapon. "I don't want to do that, but I will if I have to." The girl looked almost heartbroken at that declaration, making it hard for Qrow to keep his stoicism.
"I won't mess around, I promise." She quickly shouted at the man, suddenly very nervous. She almost fumbled as the gun was thrown back to her, but she quickly recovered, sweeping the gun into a hug, complete with baby talk.
"Right…" Qrow was almost desensitized to this sort of behaviour from his niece, almost. "Now, i'm going to set up some targets for shooting practice. We'll start with the assault rifle today and we'll cycle through each different form throughout the week. Then we'll be doing something special on friday."
With a quick snap she stood up, bringing the gun into a ready position, she couldn't wait.
It was Wednesday and Ruby was once more in her First Aid class. She was sitting next to Jeanne on a stool in one of the biology rooms, the current location of the class. Apparently the class in the infirmary was mainly to draw the students in but they would spend most of the time in the classroom.
In front of them they had a dummy made to train people in CPR, it only had a chest and a head that would allow them to blow air into artificial lungs, all of this was hooked up to a screen that would tell them whether they had managed to revive the person.
The Dr. had just finished his lecture, instructing them in the basics of CPR and was now leaving the pairs to practice on the dummies. "Remember, thirty compressions followed by two breaths." He reminded them before beginning to walk around the class, observing them all.
"So," Ruby began, wanting to ask a question she had been wanting to ask since the previous class. "Why did you partner up with me?" Jeanne had just began performing compressions on the dummy as she asked, activating the machine.
"Well, why not?" She asked, barely glancing up from the dummy. "I've seen you several times in my combat class and it was obvious that you didn't know anyone in this class." She paused in her answer to give the two breaths to the dummy before beginning the compressions again. "So I thought that you would probably appreciate it."
"Yeah, I wasn't exactly looking forward to being partnered with anyone." She admitted before sighing. "Even if anyone from my class was in this class I wouldn't want to partner up with them."
"Are you having trouble? I know Sollise did when he became an advanced student, and he was in third year when it happened." Jeanne replied, looking at her briefly with worry.
"I'm okay, there are just some annoying people in my class." She shrugged, not actually caring all that much. "They'll get over it eventually."
The dummy beeped, telling Jeanne to stop performing CPR. "Apparently I need to blow more air than I was and to get a better rhythm in my compressions." She hummed, reading the screen while grabbing one of the baby wipes they had been supplied with to clean the mouth. "It's your turn Ruby."
This was more difficult for Ruby, whereas Jeanne was tall enough to reach the dummy by standing up, Ruby wasn't. She had to kneel on the high stool to be able to reach over to the dummy, from there she began the compressions. "You know you don't have to put on a brave face. You can say if you have a problem." Jeanne was obviously trying to comfort the girl over her feelings but Ruby didn't exactly have any hurt feelings.
The {Gamers Mind} ability allowed her to remain calm and collected, while she could still feel fear, anger, sadness and depression, it took a lot more to affect her, a lot more than some jealous kids could do. "I'm fine, really." She said before reaching forward and blowing into the mouth of the dummy, her body was moving on autopilot, her {First Aid} skill activating. "At the moment the others are just annoying, they'll get bored of me eventually. I'm more worried about what my training will be on Friday."
"What's wrong with Friday?" The blonde asked as Ruby began her compressions again.
"Oh, my schedule says I'm doing combat training, but I already do combat training every morning and every night," She replied before going down to blow into the dummy's mouth. "What's so special about this combat training? Knowing my Uncle it's either going to be stupid or extreme. That worries me."
The beeping of the machine ended their discussion, the Dr. using it to draw everyone's attention for another lecture, but even so Jeanne still saw Ruby's score.
Perfect compressions.
Perfect breaths.
'How did she do that first try?'
It was Friday.
It was Friday and she was dreading what was to come.
The rest of the week had gone fairly well, she had unlocked three mastery skills for her Modulus and her other skill were growing at a fair pace. She had even levelled up from the sheer number of skill ups she had gained, not to mention the 3 Int, 2 End, 1 Con and 4 Str she had gained from studying and training.
Name Ruby Rose
Title Punctual
Level 14
Age 10
Hp 228/228
Ap 510/510
Sp 1432/1900
Stats
Strength (STR) 14
Dexterity (DEX) 12
Speed (SPD) 18
Intelligence (INT) 17
Wisdom (WIS) 30
Endurance (END) 19
Constitution (CON) 12
Charisma (CHR) 8
Luck (LCK) 9
Unspent Skill Points 14
She was tempted to put her wisdom up to 40 but wanted her Uncle's opinion on the matter first, her charisma and luck were both looking neglected when compared with the rest of her stats.
It was just before 4 pm and she was sitting in on the third years combat class, her sister's class. She had just spent the last hour watching the students fighting in one versus one fights… it wasn't the most impressive. Maybe she was just getting used to seeing the seventh years but they didn't seem that strong or skilled. Admittedly they were better than her, most were faster than her and all of them were stronger than her but they didn't seem like insurmountable opponents.
The current fight she was watching was between a boy called Yamada Tarō and her sister. Yang was blatantly the better fighter of the two but she was making several mistakes because of it. She was taking attacks she didn't need to take and was dropping her guard on a regular basis, it was kind of cringe worthy to watch. Qrow wasn't impressed either, if the low sighs and annoyed grunts he was letting off were anything to go by.
"I'm so glad you know how to keep your guard up." He murmured, watching as Yang's attempt at a combo was interrupted, Tarō landing a palm strike to her chin before throwing a kick into her side. Yang was slowly getting angrier and angrier as the fight went on. "She could have blocked that." The fight eventually ended with Yang exploding, literally, and punching Tarō into a wall. That didn't impress Qrow all that much either, getting a tut from the man as she exploded. "She shouldn't have needed to do that." He shook his head one last time before standing up and bringing the lesson to an end.
"I'm just need to drop some stuff in my office, I'll be a few minutes." Qrow told her as Yang's class filed out of the door, heading towards the changing rooms to get out of their combat gear. Yang was hanging back, obviously wanting to talk to Ruby before her next lesson.
The blonde almost ran up to her as Qrow left the room, stopping just before she bowled the smaller girl over. "Heya Sis." She grinned widely, punching the girl on the arm 'lightly'.
[Due to repeatedly taking physical blows you have gained 1 Con]
'Not so lightly…' She thought, her Hp and Ap having dropped slightly from the blow. 'At this rate I may as well spend all my training getting punched. I'd better not give Uncle Qrow any ideas.'
"Remnant to Ruby, are you in there?" Yang punched her in the arm again, harder this time, trying to regain her attention. "Seriously Ruby, you spend the entire week training and then doze off when I try to talk to you, my feelings might get hurt."
"Sorry Sis, these extra classes have kept me busy." She admitted, her hand dropping to the gun that was attached to her belt. "But I think it's been worth it." Yang snorted at that, watching Ruby almost caressing the weapon.
"Yeah, I can tell. I was just wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow?" The blonde's voice was hopeful. "They're marathoning the first season of 'Pretty Hunter Moon' and are following it with the first two episodes of the second series."
Ruby almost squealed at that news. "I forgot that was coming out." She almost immediately paused in her joy. "I don't know what Uncle Qrow wants me to do though."
"It's the weekend, no one does classes on the weekend." Yang almost whined, sounding kind of desperate…
"Yang, is everything okay?" Ruby asked, concern lacing her voice. She wasn't used to Yang having that tone of voice, she hadn't actually heard it from her in years.
"I'm fine Sis." Yang replied with an obviously forced cheer.
[Lie Detected]
"You don't sound okay." She replied, watching her sister's face carefully as it seemed to flicker through several emotions before settling on a resigned expression.
[You have used the {Guilt} skill on Yang Xiao Long]
[Relation - Younger Sister: Halves Opp Chr]
[9-8=1 - Must score 2+ on d6]
[d6 = 5]
[Charisma check passed]
[Due to your manipulations you have gained 1 Chr]
"You haven't been around for the past week." She finally sighed, giving up on the brave face. "I've missed you." Yang ran her hand through her blonde locks, before continuing with her words. "You've been waking up hours before me, only coming into the house to change your clothes and eat before spending all your time at school training. Then we go home and you train until it's time to eat and go to sleep, we haven't said more than a few sentences to each other all week. I miss you."
She had admitted it, Yang had actually admitted her problems to her… that was something Ruby rarely experienced. Yang was always the strong one, the rock in the storm, she rarely showed anything but happiness when around Ruby, actively hiding any negative emotions from her sister. Ruby could only do one thing in this alien scenario.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She repeatedly cried, bowling into her sister, limbs wrapping around her as the girl almost cried her eyes out. Yang, unbalanced by the sudden impact, fell to the ground, her little sister sobbing into her shoulder.
Her emotions quickly changed, going from sad and resigned to slightly panicked and comforting, her big sister instincts slamming into place. "Ruby, you don't have to apologise, you haven't done anything wrong." She attempted to comfort the girl, rubbing her back with her right hand. "If anything it's just me being too sensitive, I'll get over it."
"But you're not being too sensitive, I'm being insensitive." Ruby sniffed out, releasing Yang to wipe her eyes. "I should have thought about you, but I was so caught up in my training…"
"You were caught up in your training," Yang agreed softly, pushing herself up to her feet. "It's your dream, it's always been your dream. To become a huntress, you have always talked about it. It's everything to you."
"But it really shouldn't be," A stern voice interrupted, destroying the moment. "When you allow something to encompass your entire life it will morph into an obsession, an addiction of sorts that will twist and destroy you." Turning Ruby laid eyes on the Headmistress for the first time since the welcome assembly.
"Headmistress," Yang nodded, nervousness entering her voice, a small amount of sweat beginning to appear on her forehead. "What can we do for you?" Her back was straight and she was almost standing to attention.
"Nothing, I was looking for Professor Branwen, I assumed he would be here." It was a demand, not a question. The unspoken demand for information ringing through her ears and her power.
[Skye Scathach has used the {Intimidate (Physical)} skill on you.]
[Rolling for effectiveness.]
[1356-14=1342 on d1000]
[Insurmountable]
[Must roll 1000 to resist]
[d1000 = 212 charisma check failed.]
[Reroll d1000 = 112 charisma check failed.]
[Intimidation passed.]
She only had a 0.1% chance of resisting, that was mildly terrifying. "He's gone to his office, he said he had to drop some stuff off, he should be back in a minute." Her mind had shut down, automatically spewing out the information.
"Then I'll wait here for him." She nodded before turning her eyes to Yang. "Miss Xiao Long, aren't you supposed to be changing before heading to class?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna go do that." Yang awkwardly agreed moving to escape. "I'll talk to you tonight Ruby." With that Yang beat a hasty retreat, striding out of the room.
"I'll be blunt Ms Rose," The headmistress began, her face somehow becoming even more stern. "I highly disagree with your inclusion in the advanced classes. You had not proven yourself, proven that you could handle the stresses that come with such a position." Ruby made to respond but was stopped by Scathach's eyes boreing into her own. "I will leave it be… for now, but know that I am watching. If you can't handle the stress or allow it to consume your life I will stop your classes. This is my only warning."
With that she ended the conversation, moving towards the door as Qrow entered, speaking lowly to her Uncle before leading him into the corridor leaving her alone in the room.
Qrow was looking fairly annoyed as he finally walked out of the corridor and up to her, he was grumbling under his breath while fingering the pocket that held his flask. "Stupid busy bodies." He groused, moving his hand away from the flask. "All right, today you're going to go through that dungeon again." He announced his annoyance melting away to bring forth his teaching face. "We're going to see whether you can do it without my help."
[Daily Quest - Beowolf Minor Dungeon - Lvl 5]
Enter the Dungeon and kill all enemies.
Success - 300 EXP, 100 Lien, Random Armor Piece
Failure - Death
Accept
Y/N
[A daily quest is a repeatable quest that can be performed once per day. Some give money, some give materials while some will build your reputation with a certain person or faction.]
'A hundred Lien a day! That's the same as a full time job.' Ruby boggled at the amount, personally very happy. She quickly accepted the quest, her Uncle rolling his eyes at her interacting with thin air.
"You really need to improve on using your semblance unobtrusively, at the moment it looks like you're a crazy person interacting with things only you can see." Qrow sighed, hand twitching again before her restrained it.
"But I am seeing things that no one else can see." The response was so quick that Qrow was almost caught flat footed leaving him unable to respond, instead settling for running a hand through his hair and sighing.
"Let's… let's just start before I need a drink." He breathed out rather harshly, pulling his sword from his waist and grabbing Ruby's arm.
Ruby nodded, pulling out her Modulus. "{Instant Dungeon: Open}" She declared, raising her free hand in the air.
The results weren't what she expected, a window opening up in front of her as opposed to the wall of their reality shattering.
Instant Dungeon List
Combat
Grimm Dungeons
Lesser Minor Grimm - Lvl 5
Beowolf Minor - Lvl 5/ Lvl 10
Ursa Minor - Lvl 15
Miscellaneous
Empty - 1:1 Time Dilation
"Ooh, I can open other dungeons." She turned to her Uncle quickly sharing the list. "We should do these." She was almost bouncing in excitement, the thought of killing Grimm making her much happier than it probably should have.
Qrow had actually relaxed slightly, his eyes almost swimming across the immaterial screen that floated in front of him, the possibilities racing through his mind. "This, this is good," He nodded to himself, bringing a hand up to scratch his chin. "I'm guessing that we can use these to build up your experience with fighting all different types of Grimm, but that's not even the best part." He looked at her as he explained the last part. "Look at the bottom dungeon."
"The empty one?" She asked, looking at it confused. "What's time dilation?"
"Time dilation is where time in one space moves differently that in another." Qrow explained, looking up slightly as he tried to simplify the explanation. "If you were to spend a day in a 1:2 time dilation only half a day would have passed in the normal world."
"Then I could do all my training in half the time." She whispered under her breath, her Uncle barely picking up on it.
"Yep, if we can get it working then we can do all your training and leave you time to do other things, time to socialise and time to do extra studying." He nodded before muttering something under his breath, something about getting people off his back. She guessed that the Headmistress had given him a dressing down in the corridor. "But for now we should do the level 5 beowolf dungeon, to get an idea of how much you've improved over the past two weeks."
"Okay." She nodded, selecting the level 5 dungeon. "Let's do this."
[Your {Instant Dungeon} skill has leveled up by 1.]
The first 10 beowolves fell quickly enough, her unknown ability and the {Basic beowolf knowledge} allowing her to use less Ap per shot than she had expected. A shot that would cause 2 damage normally causing 3.5 damage. It was more efficient than she had been expecting but also less so. The {Lazy method} debuff was rearing it's head just like it had that entire week, forcing her to spend far more Ap on each technique than needed, the additional all acting as waste, spent for no reason.
This was an annoying theme she was having to get used to, as it stood her techniques used 70% more aura than needed. To fill her gun with 90 Ap to get the 2 damage per shot she was aiming for she had to spend 153 Ap, nowhere near what she wanted it to be.
'I should ask Uncle Qrow if he knows any control techniques, they should lessen the debuff quicker than just using aura techniques.' She thought, slowly looking around a corner for more Grimm. 'This would be so much easier if I knew where they all were.' There were four beowolves sitting at the end of the hall, in front of the double doors that led to the cafeteria. She guessed that there were more inside. 'Let's do this differently.'
She put the Modulus back into it's holster, confusing her Uncle until he saw the telltale sheen of her activating her {Aura strengthening}. "Hey!" She said, slowly walking towards the beowolves, gaining their attention, the low growling she had heard before turning into full blown snarling. The beowolves began stalking towards her before both parties broke into a sprint.
They met in the centre of the hall, Ruby ducking under the swing of the first beowolf before slamming a hook punch into the beowolf's torso, causing a meaty crunch to sound as the grimm died. The second beowolf made it's presence known, performing a five hit flurry which Ruby cut off, blocking the first two blows before slamming a hook punch into the grimm's jaw, ripping it off and killing it.
The final two attacked simultaneously, their claws flashing through the air, missing as she dodge rolled backwards before springing forwards into a roundhouse kick that killed the leftmost grimm before spinning into a hook kick, killing the fourth.
The sound of the fight hadn't gone unnoticed as the doors to the cafeteria burst open, a dozen of the werewolf-like beings charging at her. Deciding on another change of pace she pulled the Modulus off her back, cycling it into its shotgun mode before pumping her aura into the battery. The narrowness of the corridor worked wonders, the grimm were only able to stand two abreast leading to them being fairly tightly packed.
'If I fire from the front I might get four of them but they'll be on me before I can recharge the battery.' She thought before smirking slightly as she figured out her plan. 'The ceilings just high enough for this.' She gave a slight nod as she waited for them to get close enough while shifting the entirety of her {Aura Strengthening} to her legs. Just as they got in range she lept into the air, travelling over the the pack before unloading the scattershot, annihilating a full half of the group.
Unfortunately she didn't account for the recoil, having never fired the weapon without being on the ground, the recoil caused her to slam into the ceiling before falling to the ground in between the six still living grimm.
There were two grimm on one side and four on the other, each waiting for their compatriots to dissolve. Pushing herself up she charged the shotgun again before swinging around and blasting the four, their forms scattering over the hall. The final two charged forwards, striking air as she rolled under their strikes. Finally she charged the shotgun again, finishing them off in one blast.
"I think I should have used the SMG for that." She thought aloud, looking over her Ap. It was nearly empty, the gun draining her reserves too quickly. "I need more Aura or a higher Ap regen to offset it."
"I'll increase the amount of book studying." Qrow confirmed, collecting the spoils and passing them to the girl. "I'll get some more advanced books, try to increase your learning rate."
Ruby nodded briefly before walking towards the cafeteria, poking her head inside. The room was empty, all the grimm having already attempted to kill her, the only thing she could see that was out of place was a small box on the till. "That's not usually there, is it?"
The box was wooden, the wood shiny, like it was freshly lacquered but the wood looked old. There was a simple latch keeping it closed with a slot for a lock cut out of the metal, fortunately it was lacking a lock. "No, that is not usually there." Qrow confirmed as Ruby walked up to it.
Taking a breath in she flipped the latch, pulling the box open revealing that the inside was lined with red velvet cushioning. Sitting on the cushioning was a pair of vambraces, armguards, that were perfectly sized for her. The bracer was mainly leather, a thick black hardened leather that was shaped into a point over her elbows. A design that looked like a snarling beowolf was stitched into the top, the metallic coloured string making it twinkle like the moonlight. A quick observation told her what she needed to know.
[Vambraces of the Beowolf Slayer]
[Item type - Armour]
[Part of the Beowolf Slayer armour set]
[Defence - 2]
[Grants 20% bonus melee damage to beowolves]
[Durability - 25/25]
"Oh hey, armour." Ruby said as she picked up the contents of the box, slipping them on, her body automatically tightening them around her wrists. "These are cool."
Qrow reached forward, pulling her wrist towards him to examine the vambraces. "They're giving off a very slight amount of energy, it isn't aura or the energy that active dust gives off." He said quietly, Ruby barely hearing him.
"They give me a 20% boost to melee damage against Beowolves." She told him getting a sharp look from the man.
"I really need to stop being surprised by your semblance." He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Let's, let's just move on."
"Okay." Ruby nodded ending this conversation, turning towards the door. "Let's go."
[Your {Basic Brawling} skill has leveled up by 1.]
[Your {Basic Rifle Mastery} skill has leveled up by 4.]
[Your {Basic Beowolf Knowledge} skill has leveled up by 4.]
[You have gained a level, you are now level 15.]
[You have 19 stat points to spend.]
They had briefly stopped after the hundred and eighth beowolf had fallen, somewhere near the science labs. Ruby's aura had taken a dive, even as she took no hits to her aura shields, the gun just draining her too quickly. "I kinda think this would be easier without the Modulus." She sighed, looking down at the gun which had kept her excitement all week. "It just drains me too quickly."
"So, you noticed that as well." Her Uncle nodded, drumming his fingers against his leg. "There's a reason why it's never made it's way out of the prototype stage." He nodded briefly, looking at the gun. "The bullets you use wouldn't even be bug bites to a normal Grimm and you're lagging quite heavily."
"So I either need to use a gun with actual bullets, increase my Ap or increase my Ap regen." She sighed, the knowledge was nothing new. "I have 19 skill points, what should I boost?"
"Well, wisdom and luck are the two which we can't boost through training." He spoke slowly, thinking it through. "But we could probably increase your luck through some luck based games."
"Whereas I have to make wise observations to gain wisdom." Ruby nodded. "Making it the hardest to train because there are only so many times I can make that kind of observation."
[Due to your sound reasoning you gain 1 Wis.]
"You're mocking me, aren't you?" She asked the air, annoyed resignation in her voice. "If I put everything in Wisdom I can get to 50 points."
"And what would be the benefit of that, beyond the regeneration rate?" Qrow asked, groaning from where he was sat, his leg shaking slightly.
"I gained a skill at 25 wisdom, I bet I'll gain another at 50." She theorised, bringing up her skill list. "And, since it's wisdom, it will probably be an aura regen based skill. Last time it basically doubled my regen rate, if it does it again I might be able to keep up with my rifle, for now at least."
"If you do this I'm going to increase the rest of your stat training in response." Qrow told her. "As good as it seems, you're becoming too specialised for my tastes. We'll figure out more efficient methods of boosting your stats but we're going to boost them all, until I'm certain you're not going to face one that bad opponent who completely counters you."
"But I thought focusing on a few stats was good in RPG's… isn't it?" Ruby replied, confused.
"In an RPG maybe, but this is real life." He responded with a bit more heat than he needed to. "Your semblance may allow you to treat your life as a game, it doesn't do it to anyone else. What matters here isn't you, it's others."
"Okay, we'll figure out how to do the time dilation thing and we'll up my training." She sighed before pulling open her status window and dumping all her points in wisdom.
[You have created the {Spiritual Refresh} skill]
{Spiritual Refresh} (Active) [MAX]
You enter a meditative state and reflect on your aura. Regenerate Ap at 5x the normal rate, refines aura control. Must be stationary to perform.
Quickly she crossed her legs, putting her hands on her knees and closing her eyes. "{Spiritual Refresh}." In an instant everything changed in her perspective.
She was no longer a person, she was a ball of red light streaked with silver, suspended in a sea of beige, not a hard beige but the beige that's almost a pinkish white. The smell of raspberries pervaded her nose and she could taste a flavour that was almost like rum… a drink she had totally never had before, that Yang definitely didn't sneak some of her Uncle's stash when she they were 11 and 9 respectively.
She could almost feel aura around her, it was almost there, but not quite. Her own ball of energy was quickly gaining density as her aura regenerated, the silver streaks shining as it gained strength.
It was a strange sensation, feeling your own soul, feeling it gain power in such a short space of time. It was sort of humbling.
All too quickly the sensation stopped, as her Ap became maxed out, the world slowly changing back to normal, her Uncle staring at her with interest. "I'm ready to go now."
"Really, that's it?" He asked, chuckling slightly. "You close your eyes, start glowing for a minute and then declare that you're ready to go?"
"Yep." She nodded unrepentantly before moving in the general direction of the auditorium. "Let's finish this."
"Fine, we'll talk about this after the dungeon, let's go." He threw his hands up in the air, obviously slightly more irritable than usual.
'I'll ask about that later…' She thought pulling out her gun. Let's get this over and done with.
[Your {Basic Rifle Mastery} skill has leveled up.]
[Your {Basic Beowolf Knowledge} skill has leveled up.]
They were stood just outside the auditorium, Ruby had just stood up from her {Spiritual Refresh} and was checking over her. Only thirteen beowolves remained, followed by the boss.
"Okay, I'm on 522 Lien total, 52 fangs, 16 claws, 12 unidentified bottles and 300 rounds of assorted ammo." Ruby spoke, looking through her inventory, glancing back at the Lien as she gaped at the amount. "I have so much money."
"It's a decent amount, but it won't go as far as you think it will." Qrow nodded. "You can't afford even the cheapest skill book." His grin was just a little too big as she groaned in dismay, getting reminded of that little fact. "Now come on, only 14 more enemies and we'll be finished."
"Okay, I'll finish this quickly." She nodded, morphing her gun to it's sniper rifle form. "Let's go." She charged it with aura as she kicked down the door. 'The brutes have 100 hp, a head shot causes triple damage so I have to cause thirty… four damage in one shot. Yeah thirty four. With my damage multipliers that means I have to use a… 20 Ap shot.'
[You used your numeracy skills correctly in the field. Gain 1 Int.]
'At least I'm right.' She thought as she burst into the room, landing on her knee, rifle pointing at the closest Brute. She quickly fired, catching the still turning grimm in the face, it's entire head exploding from the shot. 'One down.'
She had ten seconds before she could charge the gun again. The grimm recovering from the shock with eight seconds remaining and the throwers beginning to attack with six seconds remaining.
The first brick surprised her, she had been focusing on the second brute and had completely blanked the throwers. The 4 hp she lost was annoying, not really harmful, just annoying, but she had been thrown onto her back, allowing the brute to reach her.
Two seconds remaining.
She rolled to the side as the brute slammed down it's paws, the ground cracking slightly beneath the blow. A normal minor attempted to bite her but was killed by a strengthened punch straight to its jaw.
Zero seconds remaining.
Quickly she rolled further away from the grimm, using the space to stand back up, charging the gun. The rifle was thunderous as it discharged its energy into the face of the brute, the grimm collapsing but the four remaining normal minors charging forward, not allowing her a single moment of respite.
Half a dozen bricks flew towards her body from the stands, making her roll backwards to avoid them. 'I need to finish this.' She thought, charging forwards towards the four grimm.
Two punches took out the first two before she headbutted one and kicked the final one. 'All the normal ones are dead, only the throwers left.' She thought, running backwards as she switched her rifle back to the assault rifle form. The bricks slamming into the floor she had previously occupied.
'And charged.' She thought, putting the rifle to her shoulder and aiming at the five throwers and pulling the trigger.
[BOSS INCOMING]
And here was the final part of the dungeon, she quickly shifted the gun to it's sniper rifle form charging it up with 100 Ap… 171 after adding the {Lazy Method}.
It was over immediately.
As the Ursa attempted to recover from it's 'birth' she fired, hitting it in the mask, causing 500 damage immediately. The Ursa dropped, it's body slamming into the ground without any fanfare.
[Daily Quest - Beowolf Minor Dungeon - Lvl 5 Complete]
Reward - 300 EXP, 100 Lien, Greaves of the Beowolf Slayer
[Greaves of the Beowolf Slayer]
[Item type - Armour]
[Part of the Beowolf Slayer armour set]
[Defence - 2]
[Grants 20% bonus experience from beowolves]
[Durability - 25/25]
They were basically the same as the vambraces, except made to protect the legs as opposed to the arms.
"So, that's training for today." Qrow announced, walking up to her. "I'm away for the weekend so I want you to take it easy, only do your morning training and do some studying. I should be back Monday morning, if I'm not I'll send someone to take over your evening training."
'Wait Yang and I were only talking about whether I'm training on the weekend today…' "Professor Scathach told you off earlier didn't she?" Ruby blurted out, getting Qrow's face to twitch dangerously for a moment.
"Just let us out." He sighed, letting out an annoyed breath.
Ruby couldn't hold herself from giggling as she released them from the dungeon.
-Chapter 5 End-
Authors Note - Hey guys, I'm finally done.
I'll be honest, this one was kicking me in the ass, specifically the scene between Yang and Ruby.
The next 1 should be out quicker... hopefully.
Also, I have a Beta now, his name is DA Exodus and he actually has his own RWBY Gamer story on his own account, check it out guys.
Finally, review and critique guys, I can't get better at writing without knowing where I've gone wrong. Flames are not welcome though.
See you guys at the next chapter.