All characters from RWBY and Bofuri belong to their respective owners, I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 3: Cinders and Saplings

"Maple, wake up honey. Breakfast is ready and I have a couple of surprises for you today!" Amber said, gently shaking maple awake, who was dressed in pancake themed pajamas After maple woke up the two had pancakes for breakfast, which they both agreed was the best thing ever. After that the two got into Amber's car and headed into the city, though they both failed to notice that behind them a small group of cloaked figures followed them, the shoulder of their cloaks bore a purple emblem featuring an Eye surrounded by two circles, in between the circles 3 arrows pointed outwards.

Maple had no Idea where they were going until they stopped at a shop with a sign depicting a hammer, an anvil, and a white crystal between the two.

"We're here! Today we're going to get that armor that you came with some ice dust runes so you can go wherever you want! How's that for a surprise?" Amber asked ,looking back to see maple's expression. Maple was currently wearing a pink and white striped shirt with black pants.

Maple smiled with joy and excitement, for it felt as though a small weight had just been lifted from her shoulders. "Thank you so much! That's amazing! But… What is dust? And what are Dust runes?" Maple asked curiously.

"Dust is what we call a group of minerals that are composed of Aura, there's different types of dust that each draw power from a certain element. Dust is used for a lot of things, including dust runes which imbue weapons or armor with specific properties. And before you ask, Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It can be used to heal wounds, defend against attacks, or even amplify an attack" Amber explained before noticing something.

"Maple, where is your armor?" she asked.

"Oh! It's right here." Maple said, there was a sudden flash of light and there in her hands was the armor, neatly folded in her hands. Amber's eyes widened.

"You can summon your armor?" Amber asked in surprise.

"There's lots of things I can do, I can transform into some super cool forms, I can resist poison, paralyze my opponents, create toxic hydra heads that spew a toxic breath weapon onto an opponent, teleport in front of allies to defend them and much more!" Maple said with excitement.

"I see, you'll have to show them to me later for now let's go get your armor upgraded okay? Maple nodded and they both exited the car and walked towards the shop. Meanwhile Cinder, Emerald and Mercury sat in an ally with a strange boxlike device that connected to three pairs of headphones. All three of them wore cloaks with a purple emblem on their shoulders. The emblem was known to them as "The Eye of Salem".

"So, those fools actually had some merit to their crazy plan." Mercury mused.

"It would seem so, and they managed to snag a good one, bit of a shame we'll have to kill the dustsmith to keep her here until we can convert her to our side." Emerald said in mocking lament.

"We may not have to do that actually." Cinder said thoughtfully. The other two looked at her, confusion evident on their faces.

"I say we let our little sapling get her armor enhanced, we can just break it if she misbehaves, I have a plan that'll work better. Let's see how she views this miserable world once she sees it take everything away from her again." Cinder continued in a sinister manner, Mercury and Emerald nodded. They put away the device and headed off towards the city exit.

"Just you wait, little sapling, soon you will be within our grasp." Cinder thought to herself, giving a light chuckle.

Meanwhile

The inside of the shop was hot, so hot that Maple could barely stand it, she was sweating bullets. The inside of the store was gray, with the orange glow of lanterns.

"Greetings ladies! What can I do for you today? OH! Well if it isn't Amber! It's good to see you again! Who's this?" The shopkeeper greeted them Jovially, his voice was gruff, and full of energy. The shopkeeper was a large muscular man with tanned skin and red spikey hair.

"It's good to see you too Crim, This is Maple. I'd like you to get this armor some ice runes to help keep her cool." Amber explained as maple put her armor on the counter.

"Ah I see! Well I'll have it done in about 4 hours. Don't worry about the price, It's on me!" Crim said gently, taking the armor off the counter.

"Thank you Crim, that'll give me enough time to get this one her other surprise." Amber thanked, giving Maple a head pat.

"No problem! Have a great day you two, and I hope you enjoy your other surprise kid!" Crim said waving goodbye before heading into his workshop.

The drive to their next location wasn't very long, it was only about half an hour to their destination which looked to be an electronics shop going by the phone-like devices that decorated the display window.

"And here we are at your next surprise! I'm going to get you a scroll, which is basically a device that lets you do a bunch of stuff like communicate with others long distance, browse for information or entertainment, and tons of other stuff!." Amber explained, demonstrating with her own scroll and sliding it open. The casing was brown, with a yellow diamond on one side that covered the center when the Scroll was closed.

Meanwhile in the dustsmith's shop

Crim was rather confused, but amazed by the armor on his workbench. It had been oddly… cooperative with him. As Crim delicately added each rune onto the armor it would correct the rune if he made a mistake and easily absorb each rune that was added, it was as if it knew that he was trying to help its owner, it was honestly a little creepy, but Crim decided not to think too much about it, as it accelerated his work considerably.

Back with Maple and Amber, they were just leaving the store, Maple having picked a black and red Scroll, when Amber got a call from Crim.

"[Hey! This is Crim, I managed to get the armor done early. I have no clue what it's made of, but it made applying the runes really easy. Come over to pick it up whenever you're free!]" Crim informed.

"Cool! We'll be over there soon!" Amber said cheerfully.

"What's up?" Maple asked curiously.
"Crim managed to get your armor done early, so we'll go pick it up and head home!" Amber said, much to maple's delight.

After acquiring putting her upgraded armor on Maple got a notification from her hud:
"New skill acquired: Frozen Domain: With this ability you can choose to passively unleash cold air that decreases the surrounding temperature to sub zero temperatures in a customizable radius. Alternatively if an ice Rune overloads it will flash freeze anything in an area up to 10 meters, the rune will regenerate after this triggers, and it will not freeze the wearer."

"Huh, what an interesting ability." Maple thought to herself, starting to think about the creative ways she could use her new ability.

AN: Thank you for reading this story! What do you all think of it so far? And what do you think of maple's new ability? I hope you all enjoy what I have planned for the future!