A much more cheerful fic! Happiness and humor galore! My first (and, if we're lucky, only) foray into crack.
Muse willing, this will never happen again.
Onward to the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY, but even Rooster Teeth would deny owning this mess!
Thwack, thwack, thwack!
Ignoring the branches, leaves, and laws of physics that she was utterly destroying, Weiss cut her way through the jungle with her rapier.
Behind her, three other student huntresses followed, occasionally ducking a flying wood chip or piece of leaf while looking around for hiding Grimm.
Despite the noise, none were forthcoming.
Yang, who'd taken the position at the back, chuckled. "I told you we wouldn't have any trouble."
Her partner, Blake, a neko-
The writer paused and reconsidered. Perhaps best to stay in the same universe for now.
… Blake, a half -
Not quite right.
Part-cat faunus grumbled about Yang's casual dismissal of what she saw as a very valid concern. "I just figured after two weeks of fighting Grimm hourly, helping farmers find lost animals, rescuing cats in trees, and being crossing guards for old ladies and children we would be more likely to run into problems if we made loud noises, not less." She glared at the white haired huntress-in-training, who had paused to chop a particularly nasty vine. A moment later it fell apart, despite the rapier's less than stellar cutting power.
Ruby climbed over a log and voiced her own opinion. "If you ask me, the writer just didn't want to write any of that."
Obviously.
"... It makes more sense to put Weiss as the one to clear us a path, then?" The cat-girl asked.
"No." The heiress ground out, looking back at her companions. "But I think the writer thought it'd be funny to have the girl who, quote 'never had to work a day in her life' do something a bit physical." With that she went back to clearing a path, muttering dire curses under her breath.
"Oh." For a moment the jungle was quiet, save for the thwacks of Weiss' blade and the muttered threats coming from its wielder. Then Blake spoke again. "I can take over if you want, Weiss."
"Sure." The pale girl agreed, "Right after this...last-" Her sentence was cut short as the foliage fell to the side, revealing a temple. "Ooooof course, that's all it took to find it." Weiss muttered, leaning on her rapier. "I never thought I'd be so glad for a plot point to appear." She glared at Yang. "Also, how long have you known someone else needed to take over?"
Yang shrugged, as Blake commented. "I'm still not sure why Ozpin sent us here, of all places." She pointed to the clearing. "I mean, it's not like there's anything we can learn here that we couldn't learn back home in Patch."
"Wait, what exactly is here?" Ruby pointedly asked, causing her companions to turn and look at her in surprise and consternation.
It was right about then the writer realized there had been a distinct lack of description surrounding the clearing in question. The audience had no idea that the team was looking at an ancient monastic temple that looked like some sort of mishmash between the Forbidden City and a Mayan temple. Hemming and hawing, the writer decided that, since it was bound to be brought up sometime, the audience would figure it out. They were smart, patient, and very nice.
They had to be if they were still reading this story.
"Sorry, the sun was in my eyes. I guess this is it then, the temple of Chara-... Cocha-."
"Coachella?" Weiss asked.
The red hooded girl stomped her foot. "I was literally able to say the name this entire time! What happened?"
"Humor," was Blake's humorless response. Yang nodded her head solemnly in agreement.
"The temple of Chocolate," Yang said carefully, pronouncing it as Cho-coe-latte, "will help us learn how to master the powers that come from being the ones chosen to save the world from a great unspecific threat."
Weiss nudged Ruby. "We're 'the' chosen ones? Who decided that?"
I did.
Ruby shrugged. "I don't know, but I think I'm a bit under-qualified right now."
"... And that is why we came here," Yang finished. Inspiring Music (with no discernible source) had begun playing as she spoke, rising and falling with the blonde's inflections. "We must learn to become not just huntresses, but saviors of the world!"
The three other girls nodded, and Yang felt a bit put out that there was no applause. The Music stopped.
"So, what do you think we'll have to do there?" Ruby stared hard at the imposing structure in the clearing.
A low action-esque Music (with no discernible source) began to play as Yang narrowed her eyes dramatically. "Well…"
...
"I'd imagine the first thing we'll have to do is get inside."
The large, intimidating door stood in front of the team. One of the girls reached up and knocked, causing the door to open slowly.
.
"After that we're going to be put through our paces. Bored out of our minds doing repetitive busy work."
The four of them were all doing different chores. Ruby was making bricks, Blake was doing dishes, Yang was splitting wood, and Weiss was sanding the slivers out of a large log.
.
"Eventually, despite doing completely inane chores, we'll have developed new muscle and an unexplainable understanding of all things."
The team were still doing the same chores as before, but now their muscles were slightly better defined as pensive looks adorned their faces.
.
"Of course, that's when the fun will begin. They'll need to build us into fighting shape from the ground up."
Weiss and Yang were racing through the forest at top speed, barely keeping Blake in sight. Above them, Ruby was using her smaller, lighter frame to her advantage, running and jumping along the branches to try to outpace those below her.
.
"We'll have to learn to fight with weapons that we're not going to ever use again… "
Yang held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, clearly unaccustomed to the weight and feel. Ruby was examining the daggers she had been given, tossing them and trying to figure out how to best use them in a battle. Weiss was giving the poleax she held a distasteful look, and Blake's ears lay flat on her head as she glared at the cartoonishly large boxing gloves she was wearing.
.
"... But we will learn, and be better for it! Though we'll never use any other weapons besides our own after this."
The huntresses moved through an arena, fighting enemies all around them. They used their opponents' discarded weapons to defeat most of the horde before grabbing their own and absolutely decimating those remaining.
.
"We'll probably have an old man or woman who will be our mentor…"
An old man in white robes with a wispy beard smiled in a grandfatherly way, and an old woman in similar attire looked on approvingly.
.
"But they'll be killed when the temple is betrayed from within, causing us to go on a vengeance quest, allowing us to finally graduate!"
Fire, screaming, crying, and more fighting, before a massive celebration as the team returns victorious.
.
"We'll probably go up a cup size at lea-"
...
"Whoah, whoah, whoah!" Weiss shot to her feet, cutting off both Yang and The Music (with no discernible source). "I am not going up a cup size! Firstly, I would have to get an entire new wardrobe, which I just don't have time for. Secondly, it doesn't even make sense!"
"I mea-" Ruby began, only to be shouted down by Blake.
"And do you think I want to have a larger chest?" The neko
Need to stop doing that.
… faunus crossed her arms. "I'm sorry, Yang, I don't know how you do it, but mine hurt at the end of the day. If yours get any bigger you're likely to start getting back problems."
Ruby tried again. "It's not a b-"
"C'mon, guys, " her sister interrupted, "It's not really logical. It just brings in the male viewe-"
Readers.
"-Reade-"
Actually, let's just stick with boys.
"-Boys, then. Besides, don't you always say beauty hurts?" she asked, pointing to Weiss.
"She does!" Ruby agreed, glad to finally break into the conversation. "But that's not-"
"-The point this time- thank you, Ruby." Weiss interrupted her partner, who sat down, glaring at her friends. "The point is that it makes no sense-"
"-And that it would be miserable-"
"Not for all of us," mumbled Ruby, still annoyed at being ignored.
"It doesn't matter," Yang said authoritatively. "Even if we don't, I can guarantee that our outfits will be changed."
This time it was Blake who spoke up. "Um, no. Seriously, why would we want different clothes?"
"I'm not giving up my hood!" Ruby agreed.
"Let's not be hasty, now," Weiss defended, surprising the group. "I'm sure that whatever new clothes we get will be the height of fashion. The writer wouldn't have it any other way."
I'm not that stupid.
"Thank you, Weiss." Yang acknowledged the white haired girl graciously. "We'll get new clothes to make the audience think we've changed even more than they've already seen. Of course, I doubt that the new clothing will entirely cover us…" She trailed off as her team all gave her dark looks.
"If you think I am going to fight Grimm in nothing but a chainmail bikini, you had better start running now, Yang." Weiss' voice promised violence that not even the brawler could survive.
Blake fingered the pommel of her blade. "I'm not keen on changing clothes period. I would do so if it meant the plot would advance, but not if it's just to make me a sex object."
"I'm not giving up my hood!" Ruby repeated.
Yang put her hands out, clearly nervous. "Look, guys, I'm not saying it will happen, I'm just saying that the writer might make it happen."
"Okay, so we'll kill the writer," Weiss said casually.
Do I get a say in this?
Blake nodded. "If they're dumb enough to upset four women with deadly weapons, they deserve whatever happens to them."
Ruby shrugged noncommittally. "As long as I keep my hood, I'm fine with not wearing much."
"Maybe you are, little sis, but I'm not going to let them do that to you." Yang glanced at the sky.
"But this is all hypothetical, right, Yang?" Weiss asked sweetly, sending her own glare upwards.
Blake nodded. "Now that we've made our positions clear, there should be no chance of that happening, right?"
"I don't know." Yang shrugged. "But either we're going to look good, or there's a writer who's going to have four very angry huntress trainees out for their blood."
"Um, guys?" Ruby began, pulling the group out of a blood filled daydream. "Shouldn't we, you know, go inside?"
"Oh. Yeah," the blonde agreed. "We should get started! There's a lot to do, and I'm pretty sure the writer is going to want to show everyone what we have to do-
"-Or they'll just scene change everything to when we're done." Yang finished, a bit put out that the audience had missed all of the epic adventures that her team had gone on during their time at the Temple of Chocolate. (Pronounced, of course, Cho-coe-latte.)
"Eh, it wasn't that great." Blake said, smiling at her outfit. It hadn't changed a bit. "You pretty much already told them what happened."
"Them?" Weiss (who was now dressed in a slightly trendier dress) asked.
"The audience." Yang explained. Her outfit wasn't much different, with the only major changes being that she now had a longer jacket and a tiara on her head.
Ruby, however, had changed quite a bit. She was wearing her hood, and noth-
We appear to be experiencing technical difficulties.
Please stand by.
Owwwww… my everywhere.
Ruby hadn't changed much either: she still had all of her clothes and was dressed in a nun's habit, fully covere-
We appear to be experiencing technical difficulties.
Please stand by.
That hurt way too much for a girl that small.
Ruby was exactly as we left her, but looking much more badass.
There, happy?
Brushing themselves off and casually wiping blood off their weapons from an unseen battle, team RWBY casually strolled down the road toward their destination.
"Where are we going again?" Weiss asked, putting her now clean blade away.
Ruby sighed. "Salem's hideout, remember? It was the last thing that Ozpin got out of Beacon before the tower went down and all communication with him was lost? Any of this ringing a bell?"
"Oh, that." The white haired girl snorted. "Of course I was paying attention. I was just trying to keep the plot straight, is all."
Yang rolled her eyes. "Trust me. That's the only straight thing about you."
Weiss glared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." Yang said, putting her hands up in a gesture of innocence. A gesture that was undermined by the grin she wore.
Weiss glared at her a bit longer, but eventually huffed and looked away, muttering about it not being worth it. The four traveled in silence for a few minutes. Finally Blake spoke.
"Why didn't we just take this road to begin with?" Her ears twitched in annoyance. "It would have been much faster than just chopping our way through the woods with a rapier."
Yang shrugged. "Bad writing."
Hey!
"Lazy writing, more like." Weiss corrected. "This writer seems to be more interested in keeping us moving than how exactly we get there."
HEY!
Sighing, their leader stepped in. "Guys, can we try not to upset the all-powerful being that ultimately dictates how hard our lives are?"
Finally, some respect. Than-
"We'll just have to appeal to the betas Morrigan, Aer/K, and Jeneralissima to start writing us more!" the red clad girl finished. Muttering mutinously, she finished her thought. "At least they wouldn't mess with our outfits. A nun! Really..." Her mutters grew less comprehensible, with only the occasional word making it out like "unprofessional", "stupid", and a rather concerning "mount them to my wall."
Deciding to let her partner rant, Weiss added her own opinion. "Really, if it wasn't for Jeneralissima, our writer wouldn't even have my name spelled properly! Did you know that the first time they wrote us, my name was spelled i-e the entire way through the story? It wasn't until Jeneralissima pointed it out that they started spelling it properly. They still mess it up from time to time and Jeneralissima has to go through and fix it again!" The white haired girl huffed.
"You think that's bad?" Blake asked, rolling her eyes. "The number of times the writer has called me a 'neko' because they forgot the word faunus is just ridiculous. K catches them on it all the time."
Silence fell as three of the four stewed in their less-than-happy thoughts about their writer.
Finally Yang spoke. "I prefer M. Once our writer had me in a hot and steamy se-"
Oh look, plot!
The brawler broke off, looking around the road for any sign of a plot poi person who needed help. "Nothing here."
*Sounds of frantic writing*
The large amount of Grimm suddenly surrounding the group brought a heavy sigh from the red-clad girl. "Lazy writer."
After a long battle filled with acrobatics, amazing feats of fighting ability, and cool hero quips, the Grimm finally lay dead, dissipating into the wind. RWBY looked, well, not too bad actually. Their recent training had seen them fight much worse.
"What were we talking about before?" Blake asked, panting a little after pulling off such an agile combat encounter.
"I don't remember." Ruby sighed heavily, putting her scythe away.
Weiss cleaned her blade before replacing it on her hip. "I don't think it matters now. What does matter is that it's starting to get dark. We should set up camp."
"Or we could travel through the night."
Wait, what?
"We'd make better time and could probably get to an inn by morning," Yang pointed out. Her teammates stared at her, horrified.
"Are you crazy?" Ruby demanded. "Everyone knows you don't travel at night! You set up a scene around the fire which helps everyone bond before using rotating watches to ensure that everyone gets the minimum amount of sleep to keep them functional."
Blake crossed her arms, nodding. "Yeah. I mean, everything is more active at night. Grimm, bandits (even though humanoids tend to be diurnal), and even wild animals (even though they also tend to be diurnal). Why would you want to have everyone awake at once during the most dangerous part of traveling?"
"It's just something that isn't done." Weiss finished. "Now let's make a fire so we can eat."
"Won't a fire draw attention to us?" Yang asked, still confused about the whole not traveling at night thing.
"Well, yeah," Ruby agreed, "but what are we supposed to do, eat cold food and freeze at night?"
"And sleeping together is not an option." Weiss added, cutting off Yang before she could speak. "Everyone who meets Ruby and I think we should be dating as it is. If we started sleeping together it would only get worse."
The writer paused. That might get more views! ...Their bruises suddenly throbbed painfully.
On second thought, never mind.
Shaking her head, Yang went to go punch down some trees.
Lounging back after the meal, Ruby stared up at the evening sky. "We should probably plan for how to deal with Salem."
Weiss shrugged. "I figured any plan we came up with would be rendered useless by the writer anyway."
"Guys, where did we get this food?" Blake asked, looking at the dubiously cooked meat on the stick she was holding.
Yang waved off her partner's question, focusing on her sister. "I'm with Weiss. This writer isn't good enough to actually make us lose."
"Exactly!" Weiss agreed. "Otherwise we would have been in Beacon when it fell, and would probably be running around looking for a bunch of Macguffins with no discernible purpose."
"Or chasing a myth about ancient magical girls with seasonally themed powers." Yang added. "You know, since Pyrrha died trying to become one."
Blake was still looking at her meal. "Seriously, guys. We've only been here a few hours. We couldn't have trapped anything in that amount of time unless we were crazy lucky. Even then, what would it have been?"
Ruby held up her hands in a 'stop' motion. "You two," she began, pointing at her partner and her sister, "need to stop breaking the fourth wall. You've done it so much you've forgotten we don't know that Pyrrha and Ozpin are dead and that Beacon fell. Or that we don't know the maidens are real, for that matter." Yang and Weiss blanched as they realized she was right. "And you," she continued, pointing to Blake, "need to remember that we are heroes. Unless it serves the plot, the writer will not starve us. Eat the rabbit, we caught it, we should eat it." The dark-haired huntress opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by her leader. "It's a rabbit. They live literally everywhere. At least according to the laws of writing."
With that, the red-clad girl turned back to her other teammates. "Now, we will talk strategy tomorrow, seeing as no one else has considered it. Yes, we have a less than ideal writer, but I've already spoken to K and Jeneralissima, and Morrigan is considering accepting a proposal from us. There's also an NJ that has shown interest in working with us. The last thing we want to do is make them think we don't take our work seriously and miss out on a chance for a new, better writer or possibly an actual author." Weiss and Yang nodded seriously. Ruby turned back to Blake. "Wake me in two hours; I'll pull the mid-shift and Yang is going to take the graveyard shift."
"I am?"
"You are now."
The writer paused. They had planned on writing a midnight encounter, but apparently the characters had called the betas on them. Sighing, they pushed themselves back. The phone was already ringing, and they were going to have to bribe the betas in order to keep writing.
Again.
Team RWBY would have an uneventful night.
I won't lie, if you managed to make it this far I'm both flattered and impressed. Hopefully you enjoyed it, and can't wait to read the last chapter!
Or you're quietly hovering over the back button in order to get further from the crazy writer person.
Either way, I certainly can't blame you.
I have a phone to answer now.
R&R
(Working Title: Thwack Thwack Thwack)