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Ruby took a deep breath as she stood before her friends, nervous to make her proposition. She knew it was a wild card, but she knew it was hopeless if she attempted it alone. Looking out the window, she could see that the sun was still up in the sky, not even setting. If they acted today, they could hope to make visible progress by dusk.
Weiss spoke up before Ruby did. "So, what's this all about?"
Ruby inhaled deeply, scared of how her friends might take it, "We need to go after Torchwick."
Out of the corner of her eye, Blake's back straightened, her eyes brightened.
"Ruby, we—" Yang started.
Weiss cut her off. "No."
Ruby raised a finger, ready to protest, but Weiss crossed her arms and shook her head. "No. It is way too dangerous."
"What about last time?" Yang spoke up. "We ended up fighting Torchwick in one of the Atlas fleet's brand new Paladins."
Weiss turned to her, gesturing wildly. "And that is exactly my point! We were lucky that fight ended in a draw. If it weren't for your semblance, Yang, he would have killed you! In fact, it was the only reason we were able to walk away that night."
Ruby, Yang, and even Blake all tried to interrupt, knowing that it took more than Yang's temper to take him down, but Weiss continued. "That was only when it was detective work. This time, we're going on a mission, a manhunt, for Roman Torchwick's head. Who's to say that whoever was there to break him out of prison won't be with him when we find him? If we find him."
Ruby never considered that Torchwick had an accomplice. Ruby stopped to think while Blake took advantage of the lull in Weiss's statement.
"That shouldn't stop us! Torchwick is dangerous. We know that for a fact," Blake shouted.
Yang raised her voice as she stood up. "Blake's right. I was prepared to sit this one out when Torchwick was just stealing dust, but now that's he's hurt innocent people, I can't let him walk free like that."
Blake nodded. "Neither can I."
"I can't believe that you're all prepared to risk your lives over this," Weiss grumbled.
"That's the duty of a Huntress," Ruby recited, almost incredulous. She knew Weiss couldn't fight her on this. "He's hurt the innocent, defenseless people we swore to protect. It's our duty to make sure that he never does it again."
"But we're not ready!" Weiss exclaimed.
"I think we proved that we were ready when we didn't die that night, fighting Torchwick in an Atlas military-grade weapon." Ruby raised her head. "We're a team. So if we're doing this, we're doing it together."
Weiss hesitated for a moment, and then silently nodded her head. Everyone was in agreement, then. Torchwick's going down.
"All right, then," Ruby said, all seriousness. "Let's hatch a plan."
While Weiss and Blake were leaving for their separate destinations as soon as school ended, Yang was going through Ruby's clothes. She pulled out a black dress, turning to Ruby.
"This is the sexiest thing I can find in there," she said.
"That's my favorite!" Ruby said happily.
Yang shook her head and haphazardly threw it back in the drawer. "You've got to be kidding me," she muttered.
She moved to her own dresser on the other side of the room and started going through her own nightwear. "We need to blend in with the people that want to party on a Friday night. If you don't show skin, you'll stick out." She started throwing dresses and gear over her head, mumbling things to herself.
"That one shows my knees," she defended.
Yang turned back to her with a shocked expression and spoke with a sarcastic tone. "How scandalous!"
Ruby rolled her eyes. "I get that we're sneaking around and stuff, but what's wrong with going in what we usually wear?"
"The bouncers know my face, and I don't want to be spotted from across the street. You, however," she gestured to what Ruby was wearing, "want to avoid being told by the bouncers that you don't look old enough to be in there."
"Hey!"
"I'm just saying—no one over twenty wears tulle."
Ruby twirled the material at her cuff around her fingers. "Okay, fine, I get your point, but I won't fit in your clothes."
"Relax, it'll be fine." Yang finally settled on a dress that appeared somewhat presentable and showed it to Ruby. "What do you think of this one?"
Yang was holding up a red dress with a cowl neckline and black embellishments at the dress.
"I don't know," Ruby said.
"Try it on," she suggested.
Ruby wrapped her hand around the hanger. Yang turned back to her clothes and dug through rounds of ammunition.
Ruby stripped off everything, including her gear, leaving a tank top and spandex shorts underneath. She held it up and tried to put it on, but she couldn't fit it over her shoulders.
"I'm having a problem," Ruby said, fabric muffling her words.
Yang turned around and laughed. She pulled the bottom half down over her chest, and stretched what was left to fit over Ruby's head. Yang took a step back and examined her with a scrutinizing glare. She reached forward to adjust the neckline, but it must not have looked right.
Yang came to a conclusion and waved her hand. "Take that one off. It's not going to work."
Ruby grunted as she tried to figure out how to get it off when she struggled to get it on. Yang sighed and pulled it off her and asked her to put it back on the hanger.
Yang quickly produced another dress: a small, black number that didn't seem to cover much. She Ruby took it in her hands with what she hoped wasn't eagerness and started to pull it over her head before Yang stopped her.
"You're gonna need to take off the tank top," she said.
Ruby shot her a look and obliged, throwing it to her side of the room. Pulling the bottom over her head was a challenge, but the bust was easy. Ruby smoothed it over her lower half and tugged at the bottom, hoping her spandex wouldn't show.
"What about this one?" she asked.
When Yang turned around, the most absurd expression crossed her face. She broke out into fits of laughter.
"What?" Ruby demanded, suddenly embarrassed.
"Look in the mirror," she giggled.
Ruby stood in front of the vanity on her side of the dorm and blushed. The front of the dress sagged. In contrast, the dress was super tight around her stomach and her butt, with a piece of fabric coming down to her thigh on the right side of her reflection. The v-neck, which looked more like a slit down the middle of a perfectly good dress, ruined the whole effect, making her look as young as she was.
"Is it supposed to be this way?" she asked.
Right behind her, Yang said, "No, but these pieces," Yang grabbed the corners of the neckline and held them away from her chest, "are supposed to stick up like this. I guess," she snickered, "you don't have the chest to hold it up."
"Stop laughing!" Ruby blushed.
Yang grabbed a chunk of fabric and pulled it to a spot between her shoulder blades and clipped it. "That's better."
Ruby had to admit, the dress looked pretty good, but she still looked like a child playing dress up with her mother's clothes. Yang noticed as quickly as she did.
"We're gonna have to fix this," she determined, pinching Ruby's cheek.
Ruby frowned. "Did you have to put it that way?"
Yang raised her hands in the 'don't shoot' position, rephrasing her words, "I just meant that you don't wear makeup."
"Well neither do you," she defended.
"I don't have the same youthful look you do, and yes I do. It's just not obvious or gaudy."
Ruby growled. "That's a way of putting it."
"Trust me, you're going to look that way your whole life. It's what's going to make you look 30 when you're 40." Yang sat her down in the chair and opened her makeup box on the table. Ruby got a little dizzy when she saw the extra compartments folding out of it. "Be happy that you don't look your age like the rest of us. It'll help you later, especially when people are going to be looking for your baby face tonight."
Yang looked at Ruby's reflection in the mirror. "Should we dye the tips of your hair black?"
Ruby protectively covered the ends of her hair. "No way!"
"Relax, I just mean temporarily."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"…How temporarily?"
"The dye comes out completely in five washes. Because your tips are permanent dye, they shouldn't be affected."
Ruby looked back at her own reflection. It might help to erase any identifiers. "Yeah, okay, I'm cool with that."
Yang walked back to her dresser and pulled out a box of hair dye.
Ruby turned, surprised, "How long have you had that for?"
"I've been waiting to spring it on you for weeks. I've just been looking for the right opportunity." Yang tried to conceal a smirk.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You have a really edgy haircut. I just think having it all black would seal the deal," she said. "Now I finally get to find out for myself!"
Ruby turned back to the mirror as Yang adjusted the curtains for better lighting. The sun was setting outside.
"Will we have enough time?"
"Of course, this'll take at most one hour, and Junior doesn't even let people in until dusk."
