Ruby Rose: Life is a game Chapter 6

A tense situation.

-Chapter 6 Start-

Headmaster's office, Beacon Academy

Qrow nursed his glass of whiskey, swirling it as he tried to ignore the whining of Headmaster Lionheart over the CCT call. A lot of Qrow's summer report had focused on the Mistralian black market and criminal underbelly which had quirked his nose something proper. He sighed as a headache began to form, getting the attention of Lionheart. "Do you have something to add Qrow?"

Letting out an aggrieved breath he downed the glass in one gulp before glaring up at the Headmaster. "Yeah, suck it up and get over it." He drawled out, getting an enraged sound from Lionheart and chuckles from the Headmistress of Shade. "The black market has been an issue in Mistral for centuries, just because your kingdom likes to pretend that it doesn't exist doesn't mean it isn't there." He stood up walking closer to the camera that was focused on him. "If you want to get rid of it, do something, don't just pretend that it doesn't exist, that's not going to get you anywhere."

"The black market is nowhere near as large, powerful or prevalent as you're making out." Lionheart retorted, shaking in anger as he picked up his cup of tea, glaring at Qrow.

"Yes, it is." Qrow simply replied, moving over to the decanter that sat to the side, pouring himself another tumbler.

"We're getting off topic." Ozpin interjected, trying to calm the other headmaster down. "What was Salem's intentions with the black market?"

"I wasn't able to identify her agent but I discovered that they were trying to hire the assassin Marcus Black." He continued his report, looking up at the screens. "They also bought information on the low level leadership of the Schnee Dust Company and on the identity of Atlas' White Fang leadership."

"So they want to incite violence between the two factions?" Ozpin summarised. "With Ghira giving leadership to Khan there have been fears that the White Fang might become militant. If they can cause that to happen there will be chaos."

"And in Atlas, people won't look close, just assuming that the murders were race related." The Headmaster of Atlas admitted with a nod.

"That's not all." Qrow interrupted. "I think they're trying to install themselves in positions of power within both factions." He swirled his drink slightly. "If they do they'll be able to control both the general opinion when it comes to unity and they could throttle the dust supplies to the kingdoms."

"I'll look into it and deal with what I can." The Atlas Headmaster nodded before turning to Ozpin. "How is Autumn doing?"

"Poorly." He sighed. "While her aura is fighting it, her cancer has progressed, the doctors believe that she has three, maybe four years before she passes. I've began the process of finding a new host but it's slow going."

"Damn." He sighed. "And we still don't know where the Spring Maiden is?"

"No, I'm looking into it but I still don't know where she is." Qrow admitted, taking a sip of his whiskey. "I was sidetracked by the entire White Fang/Schnee situation."

"Understandable." The Shade Headmistress nodded. "Spring won't be found until she wants to be found. How are Winter and Summer?"

"Progressing nicely." Glynda Goodwitch cut in from where she was sat. "I visited both over the summer, they are both becoming quite adept at casting."

"Good." She nodded, respect for the younger woman obvious. "I think that's everything. Ozpin?"

"Qrow, I'm going to need you to continue tracking down Spring. We need to ensure that she's not dead, otherwise we'll have to track down the new Spring." Ozpin told the man before looking up at the others. "Please assemble a list of people who you believe could be candidates for Autumn, otherwise stay vigilant. We do not know where Salem will strike next."

And with that the meeting ended, leaving only Ozpin, Qrow and Glynda in the room. "Lionheart needs to get his head out of his ass." Qrow told Ozpin before draining his whiskey again.

"Lionheart is a good man, he just holds his pride as very important and it really doesn't help when you repeatedly poke at it." Ozpin answered, taking a sip from his coffee. "But then again you were more short tempered than usual today." It was a statement, not a question.

"Scathach had a rant at me today." He admitted. "I've been placed on probation, if i step a foot out of line I'm suspended. So, I'm probably going to lose my job the next time I go on a weekday job for you."

"It won't come to that Qrow, I'll talk to Scathach for you." Ozpin placated the other man.

"That won't do any good Oz, Scathach is getting tired of your platitudes." Qrow almost slammed the wall as he leant against it. "I might need you to start paying me for my time."

"I'm sure I'll be able to smooth things over." Ozpin reassured him, before shifting gears. "How is Miss Rose's training coming along?"

Qrow's stance changed from worried to annoyed. "It's going well, she's progressing quickly. Are you going to give me the information I asked for?"

"I don't believe that it's time to tell her, she needs time to grow into it, not to have it forced upon her." Ozpin responded, slightly admonishingly. "She should enjoy her childhood while she has it."

"A childhood is all well and good but I want her to live to see adulthood." Qrow retorted, slamming his tumbler down. "Unfortunately Salem is hunting people like Ruby down, just like she did with Summer."

"Her anonymity is her greatest defence against Salem, so long as she doesn't do anything to draw Salem's gaze she won't be targeted." Ozpin responded, steel in his tone. "If she unlocks her eyes she will draw Salem's gaze, she needs to be strong enough to defend herself without the eyes before she should gain the eyes."

"That's good and all, but Ruby is already drawing attention to herself." Qrow shot back. "I caught Raven sniffing around, she'd noticed someone else messing with the walls of reality." He admitted, getting Ozpin to stiffen. "We already know that Salem can detect it, she will make a move, sooner or later. At the moment she's probably mistaking it for one of Raven's 'visits', but she won't be fooled for long."

"That… that's a different story." Ozpin admitted, slumping slightly in his chair. "I'm not afraid to admit when I might be wrong, but I want to make sure that she is ready for the knowledge." Oz steepled his fingers in thought, looking directly at Qrow. "In two months the schools will be let out for half term, at that time I would like to meet her. I will make a decision at that time."

"Just two months." Qrow warned, staring Ozpin in the eyes. "Otherwise I'll tell her anyway."

"Two months." The older man agreed resolutely. "I'll keep a lookout for any information about Spring, otherwise you should continue as you are. I'll see you in a week Qrow."

-LINE-BREAK-

[Your {Observe} skill has reached level 25]

[You have created the {Inspect} skill]

{Inspect} (Active/Passive) [Lvl 1, 00.00 EXP]

A skill that allows you to identify unidentified objects and liquids. May need to link with other skills to activate.

Ruby was annoyed by this skill, not the skill in of itself but the last line of the description. At first she was excited, she would be able to find out what the bottles she had looted from the dungeon contained, only to find out that she couldn't, she needed the alchemy skill, or the chemistry family of skills.

So, upon finding out that she needed alchemy she brought out her shop scroll and started looking up the cost of a skill book for it.

Skill Book: Alchemy 10,000 Lien

She only had 522 Lien, that was after two dungeons and several quest rewards. She would probably have to wait to get it.

"Now, we'll start easily enough, does anyone know any weaknesses a beowolf might have?" Her father asked the class at large, it was her second Grimm studies class, the first one in which they were actually learning anything.

The class remained silent, just looking at the man awkwardly. Tai sighed, running his fingers through his hair before addressing the class again. "Anyone at all?" Once again he got no response, glancing around the students he gained a small smirk as he saw Ruby paying attention to something under the desk as opposed to his class. "How about you Ruby, do you know any weaknesses?"

Now she was put on the spot, he knew that he hadn't been listening so this would act as an example to the class… "Their limbs tend to be rather gangly, meaning they are easier to damage than the rest of the body, they also lack any form of armour around the back of their necks, meaning it is easy to cause damage there as opposed to the face which is usually armoured."

Now the shoe was on the other foot, he hadn't expected such an exact answer, he thought she would attempt to blag her way through and he would gently reprimand her about not listening, now it appeared as if she wasn't listening because she was already beyond the current lesson. Now all he could do was correct the few flaws in her answer.

"While the limbs are easier to damage you generally have to aim at the back of the knees, the front of the elbows and the wrists, the bones are generally too thick to cut easily otherwise. The limbs also get armour plates fairly quickly as the beowolf grows meaning the older the beowolf, the less effective it becomes." He corrected, walking up to the board and bringing up an image of an alpha beowolf.

[Your {Basic Beowolf Knowledge} skill increased by 1.]

You have lost 50 reputation with {Signal Academy First Years}

You have gained 50 reputation with {Signal Academy Faculty}

Ruby sighed as her reputation with her own class decreased even further. Over the weekend she had finally found her reputation tab and immediately grew embarrassed as she saw some of the descriptions of her relationships.

While her and her Uncle Qrow having a Father/daughter relationship wasn't anything new (Yang once joked that Ruby had two fathers and Qrow immediately began hitting on her Dad as a joke), the news that hers and Yang's relationship was straddling the line between Yang being her sister and surrogate mother was more than a bit embarrassing.

It was the news that her class disliked her, with Rhodey outright hating her that hurt her the most, while she knew it before, seeing it quantified hurt a lot more.

In other news she had discovered more about the party system, there were two types of party, hard and soft, each working differently.

A soft party was made up of people nearby who were working towards a single goal. The party only existed when you were close and it allowed her to share gain experience from their actions. It was an almost completely one-sided arrangement.

A hard party on the other hand was much more involved, up to four people could be in a party, the party did not matter about distance and granted a lesser form of the {Gamer's Mind} perk, allowing them to see nameplates, health bars, aura bars and to share information that that they already knew, like weaknesses and backstories. It also gave an increased rate of learning for any abilities they might have and the ability to open voice chats at a distance.

On the other hand they couldn't use skill books, they didn't gain a specific amount of experience per use, having to level it up naturally and they lacked the mental and emotional defence that Ruby herself had.

Unfortunately it also prevented her from opening a hard party with someone who was more than 50 levels higher than her, meaning she couldn't add her Uncle. That was a bit of a downer but she would deal with it.

There was also a guild option which was basically a much larger party, it required twelve people to start and allowed for a much larger group chat, a semi-permanent form of the {Gamer's Mind} that didn't require them to be in a party. It also allowed members to create their own parties without Ruby's interference.

It also gave a rudimentary shared inventory to all the members allowing for the sharing of items and money between them, with any loot earned by members (other than Ruby or her party members) being placed automatically within the inventory. There was more but she wasn't able to see it until she had a guild of her own.

Now all she needed was people she trusted enough to actually form a party, which was going to take a long time at this rate. She hated being an introvert…

-Line-Break-

[Daily Quest - Beowolf Minor Dungeon - Lvl 5 Complete]

Reward - 300 EXP, 100 Lien, Pauldrons of the Beowolf Slayer

[You have gained 2 levels. You are now level 17]

[You now have 10 skill points.]

"Done." She smirked as the Ursa dissolved, slowly dispersing into nothing more than a pile of loot. "What's my time?" She asked, turning to her Uncle who was looking at his watch.

"37 minutes, since you can get your aura back so quickly now we've really cut down on the time spent just sitting around." He nodded, watching her strap the pauldrons onto her shoulders. "So, that's your third piece of armour, what's the boost on this one?"

Ruby briefly looked down, activating her {observe} ability. "This one gives a boosted chance to stun beowolves when hit in melee." She finished strapping the new piece of armour on before turning to her Uncle. "Before we continue with training can we have a look around, we found a chest last time, I'm wondering if there is anything else."

"Yeah, we're ahead of schedule, we can afford to have a look around, it'll give us some idea about your ability and hey," Qrow nodded in agreement. "maybe we can find something useful. First we should find out how large this 'dungeon' is."

"So, keep walking until we can't walk anymore?" She clarified, getting a nod in return. "Okay, there's the side door over there." She nodded pointing at the firedoor within the auditorium.

"I know, it's not like I've been working here for nearly 12 years." He rolled his eyes, following her to the door and kicking it open. "I've always wanted to do that." He smirked as the door flew off it's hinges. "Alright, let's go to the security fence first. Then we'll see how far it goes beyond it."

They walked mostly in silence, the security fence looming slightly in the distance. It was tall, standing at nearly five meters tall an electrified mesh surrounding the school, warnings resplendent along the perimeter. They had a small ditch dug around on the inside and a smaller, non-electrified fence on the other side of that. It was designed to be able to stop Grimm from attacking the school while preventing the students from getting to the dangerous fence.

As they reached the fences Qrow immediately pulled out his sword, flicking it down into its shotgun configuration before firing at the air just above the fence. A ripple extended across the sky, like a wave across a still pond, spreading across the length of the outer fence. "It looks like it follows the fence the entire way around." He muttered, before looking towards the front of the school. "Let's see if it goes into the car park or just to the fence." He nodded before beginning to walk towards the entrance.

The world was eerie, eerier than she had noticed before. The other two times she had left immediately after killing the boss, the silence surrounding them was unnerving. In real life it was rarely silent, there was always a noise, cars, birds, the thrum of electricity. Even this dungeon had noise, the sound of claws scrabbling across the tiles, the sniffling of beowolves and their howls.

Now though, there was nothing. Just her and her Uncle's breathing, their feet crunching gravel, the clink of their weapons and a faint whooshing sound in the distance…

"Do you hear that?" She asked nervously, glancing around while fingering her modulus.

"Yep." He agreed, pulling out his own weapon. "We need to find out what it is."

They stalked forwards, towards the sound, stopping briefly as they neared the corner to the front of the school. The sound had increased in volume now, the whooping sound being accompanied by an almost ethereal hum. Rounding the corner they finally saw the cause.

Floating in the middle of the car park was a small dark ball, it was roughly the size of a golf ball and was primarily black but was tinged with purple, blue and even some green. It was roiling around a single point but seemed contained. "What is that?" Ruby asked nervously, looking at the darkness.

"I don't know." Qrow admitted, getting closer but never touching it. "You're the one with the observe ability." He reminded her softly, getting her to nod before activating the ability.

Contained Darkness - A contained point of the power of Darkness, this is a blight against all of existence. Erase it and you will be rewarded.

Erasing Darkness - Throughout your many journeys you will encounter contained Darkness. Upon touching it, the Darkness will be released and will take on the form of a beast, upon defeating the beast the darkness shall be temporarily banished.

But erasing the darkness, that will require more. Upon attempting to erase the darkness you shall be in for a much tougher battle.

You hold the ability to erase it, even if you do not realise it yet. Just as all like you have.

"What is it on about?" She nervously asked, looking at her stone faced Uncle as her read the shared screen. "And why does it seem like someone else is controlling it." That was what was really shaking her up.

A semblance was the manifestation of your soul, it was a highly personal thing, every semblance (barring a few families) was completely unique to the wielder. It was the sum of everything that made a person special. But if something else was controlling her semblance, then something else was controlling the shape of her soul. That was what was shaking her up.

"I don't know." Qrow admitted readily. "It does seem suspicious and I will look into it. But there are other options as opposed to someone controlling it." He added, looking at the worried girl. "It could be your subconscious, it could be a split personality or maybe just a manifestation of your semblance."

"Most of those sound like I'm crazy…" Ruby slowly replied at his attempts to comfort her.

"Ruby, a semblance being manipulated is completely unheard of. A semblance allowing a person to gain information or a person gaining more personalities are far from unheard of." Qrow replied tiredly. "We'll have a long look at what this is at a later date, for now we have other things to deal with. Like this ball of darkness."

"Should I activate it? The box seemed like it wanted me to activate it." Ruby asked, looking at the man, causing him to sigh and run his hand through his hair.

"Yeah, I'm here if anything goes wrong and it did say you would be rewarded." He agreed, clapping his hand down on her shoulder not letting go. "But I won't be caught outside a barrier this time."

"Okay, let's do this." She agreed, another box popping open in front of her.

Quest - The rising Darkness

Banish your first contained Darkness.

Reward - 500 EXP, a unique weapon (first time only)

Failure - Death

'A unique weapon?' She thought, her eyebrows rising. Shaking her head she accepted the quest before reaching forward and touching the darkness.

It was like a lock shattering, an explosive burst of energy blasted from the contained darkness the ball expanding swiftly, trying to absorb Ruby's hand and arm. She was only saved as Qrow quickly pulled her back, jumping both of them away from the darkness.

The bubbling darkness was letting off an ear piercing whine as it began to undulate and take form. It's form was larger than her, larger than her Uncle as well. It looked like an amalgamation of a bird of prey and a lion, the front looking like a mix between a raven, a falcon and an eagle, the front legs containing large talons that looked like they could rip her apart in one attack. An aura of dark energy surrounded it, flaring dangerously

[Unrestrained Darkness]

Griffon Minor - Level 15

5000/5000 Hp

"5000 hp? That's 10 times what the Ursa had." Ruby squeaked before she was cut off by the screech from the enemy. Quickly she lifted her rifle unloading it towards the beast only to hit nothing as the griffon took off flying high in the air far faster than she could follow.

"A griffon? That could be dangerous." Qrow murmured as he watched it circle outside of the range of his shotguns. "I'll handle it if it gets in close, use your rifle, figure out how far you have to lead it for then take it out." He instructed her, flicking his weapon so it was in it's sword form. "This is an important skill for you to learn, you'll use it against any fast moving enemy."

"Okay." Ruby nodded as her modulus shifted to it's sniper rifle form. "Let's start with a few small shots." She nodded, dumping 82 points (she was trying to put 50 in) of aura into her weapon.

The first round whizzed past it's head harmlessly, missing by nearly a meter, getting the griffon to look down at her threateningly. It banked, aiming towards her and preparing to dive as the second sniper round was fired, slamming into it's flank, the black energy dissipating some of the energy. "Dang it, {Observe}." She yelled annoyed, looking at the creature.

[Unrestrained Darkness]

Griffon Minor

Level 15

4975/5000

A portion of the power of Darkness given form, it has taken the form of a Griffon Minor. The energy surrounding it has a dampening effect, halving the effect of energy based effects.

"Halved?" She squeaked, her nervousness turning to fear, that momentary flash of fear was a mistake.

The wings of the griffon momentarily seized backwards as it prepared, the beast dropping through the air as Ruby fired a third shot that flew through the air where the creature was. All at once it snapped it's wings forward, it's feathers shifting noticeably before more than eight dozen were launched forwards tip first. Quickly she put her aura shield on full before trying to retreat backwards, her Uncle moving in front of her, his sword glinting as he batted the feathers away in a flash of sparks.

The griffon was hovering as it repeatedly fired its feathers, pausing briefly to allow the feathers to reform on its wings before the next flurry came. "Let's try this again." Ruby whispered to herself, steadying her aim, trying to ignore the few feathers that got passed her Uncle to ping off of her arms

[Signal Academy Student]

Ruby Rose - Level 17

178/273 HP

'I need to get to cover after this.' She nodded, raising the scope to her cheek. Lightly touching her finger on the trigger she quickly aimed before swiftly pulling the trigger, releasing her aura from the battery into the dust crystal within her rifle. At that moment everything went wrong.

One of the feathers surged forward, just as the aura hit the crystal within the weapon, striking the weapon with a reverberating screech of rent metal. The sound of cracking crystal was all the warning Ruby had before her hands, chest and face exploded in pain, the gun disintegrating in her hands.

Her ears were completely filled with a numb ringing as her slowly fading vision saw one last thing.

[Signal Academy Student]

Ruby Rose - Level 17

0/273 HP

-Chapter 6 End-