Disclaimer

I don't own RWBY, or any company related to it.

Any of the names other than RWBY cast are fictional and resemblances to real people are purely accidental.

AN: Info for ease of writing and reading :P.

Gentle rose - a sabre sword.

Scarlet rose - rifle

Age - 14 years 2 months 2 weeks

My timeline of V1-3: imgur com /a/ZyoijxK

CHAPTER 22

"I, nor any other person were never able to defeat him in the fight" commented Blake after getting out of her shock.

"Well I just happened to have a better counter for his abilities, but there are people that most likely could defeat me easily, by countering my semblance and weapons" Ruby answered, trying to downplay her victory in favor of friendship, as she didn't want to have a fan.

"Still you defeated him fast, just what have you been doing for the majority of your life?"

Ruby thought for a moment, before whispering and answering with her eyes pointed towards the ongoing spars "surviving and training".

Blake's eyes narrowed suspiciously for a moment seeing Ruby not wanting to answer directly to her, but neither of them continued the talking and just waited.

Nobody challenged her anymore, so she just waited and watched the ongoing spars, especially ones with Blake. Her friend was able to win most of the matches, by the usage of her shadow image clone semblance, but lost to more experienced people, who managed to ignore the clone and strike her directly a couple of times.

After the spars, people started scattering in order to do their duties, amongst them was Blake, who went in the direction of her tent, as she with a few other faunus remained for a briefing that started at the center of a sparring ring.

"Now that everyone that is required for a mission is present, please bring up the chairs closer and then let's start the briefing. James please bring up the map and the board" said Taurus, who stood up in front of them.

Each person, including Ruby, took a single chair and brought it closer, before sitting on them, as a snake faunus, due to visible blue scales, named James, brought a standing board with a map of a mining complex and its surroundings, where were placed various markets and notes.

"Thank you James. Now as you can see this is a map of the complex where we will be liberating our brothers and sisters from human oppression. We will land in three places, here, here and there. Alfa squad lead by Donas with

Five men codenamed Dewoo, Preach, Dud, Lucky and Baddy. Your task is to secure the radio station and destroy any means of communication. After that you will help Bravo squad, which is tasked in taking out outer defences and securing our kind. Bravo team will be under Bedworth and will be the largest twenty man group. Charlie will be under my command and will consist of a marksman pair of Black Rose and her spotter Eagle Eye and small five man group consisting of Hawk, Denner, Slasher, Lieutenant and Blue. We will split here and assault the rest of the building, when the Rose with Eye would clean up everything they see outside and windows from this position." He pointed to a marked spot on the map and continued. "After securing the complex, they will join us on the main building roof, where we will extract everyone. We have a surprise element on our side and we will be moving out tomorrow at eleven at night."

Adam stopped the speech, took a sip of water from a bottle that was laying on the ground, before looking at them again and said "Remember, no mercy towards humans. All of them must die, also if you hesitate, they will kill you without mercy. Think about people who they have enslaved, raped and murdered for fun and profit. Any questions?"

When nobody said anything, Taurus smiled and said "Dismissed then".

After that they all went in various directions while the sky was getting darker. Looking into the sky, Ruby saw that the day was slowly ending and decided to go to sleep.

Getting back to the tent, she saw Blake reading her book sitting on top of the mattress, before looking up at her and nodding her head in welcome sign, before marking a page with a bookmark and placing it on her portable table.

"So how did it go?"

"Good, we will be leaving tomorrow at night, so I want to catch as much of a sleep as possible, though I felt a little pumped up for sparring, only to end up waiting and watching others, as no one wanted to spar with me after my match."

Blake snickered, which she had almost instantly calmed down and with a hint of a smile said to Ruby "Well I don't think anybody would want to fight you after you beat up the best fighter here. Also fully armed you are kind of intimidating…"

"Kind of?" Ruby looked at her face, while also stripping herself and preparing to wear nightwear.

"Well you look like a small you…"

"Hey I drink milk! I am still growing!" Ruby interrupted Blake's explanation for a moment, before Belladonna continued.

"As I was saying with your body holding up a massive spear that looks like it is also capable of blowing up a section of the wall, if not more and the tattered, stitched cloak of yours gives a kind of intimidating aura around you".

Ruby thought about it for a while, while setting herself in her sleeping bag and trying to find a comfortable position to lie, but after a while she stilled in the best possible position.

Blake, watching that after a while of pondering, decided to interview and called her "Ruby, join me on the mattress, since it is much more comfortable and both of us will fit on it. Just leave your sleeping bag on the ground. I don't want a dirty bed to sleep in".

Rose immediately reacted and got up, while unzipping her sleeping bag and reached to her traveling bag to take out the spare dark red blanket she had at the bottom.

The other girl seeing this smiled at the thought of not having to share her own small blanket, since it would have left her partially exposed.

After taking it out, Ruby lay on the mattress and covered herself up while saying softly "Thank you Blake" and slowly falling asleep.

As she was almost asleep she felt a hand on her head petting gently her cat ears and purred while hearing "No problem Ruby. Goodnight".

"Goodnight" she answered.

The next morning Ruby alarm clock app ringed from her scroll waking both of them up and causing Rose to get up and shut it down.

Blake, disgruntled, looked at her, to which Ruby replied "Sorry I wake up early almost every day for lessons, exercises or training. I let myself sleep that off on Sundays, also early training raises my appetite for potential breakfast. Wanna join me?".

Blake, still sleepy looked at her and murmured "give me five minutes, can't be outdone by a kid".

"Hey! Technically both of us are kids here" grumbled Ruby as she wore her lighter red and black training clothes consisting of above belly button short sleeved T-shirt, short pants and sneakers from the bag, as she didn't want her everyday combat dress to get dirty along the cloak. After getting ready, Ruby stood at the exit of the tent and waited, while watching Blake getting ready, who just wore her everyday clothes and joined her in a few minutes.

Both of them went to yesterday's sparring ring and Ruby started stretching herself with Blake shortly after joining her and repeating her exercises.

After fifteen minutes of stretching Ruby did the center split position, to which Blake just said "nope, I am not doing that. It hurts too much".

Hearing that Ruby looked up from her seated position and smiled saying "this is the last one for this part of exercises and if you do it correctly and be able to stretch yourself properly it doesn't hurt".

After Ruby got up she started doing light physical exercises such as squats to heavier ones as one handed pushups. After doing fifty of them, she looked at Blake, who was already covered wholly in sweat, as she herself was just getting first drops of it on her skin and jokingly said while pinching herself on the stomach "You know that this is the second step from three? If you want to have such stomach muscles, then you need to do them every day?"

Blake panted while looking at Ruby and said "I am starting to believe that they are not worth it…", but continued following Rose exercises.

Ruby suddenly coughed to her hand and checked it, before running at moderate speed around the field, with Blake joining shortly after. She continued running, even after Blake sat down on sand, unable to run anymore for around thirty minutes and with the sweat covering her, she joined her companion to rest.

"Well I didn't tell you that you have to follow my training regime, since I have been doing these types of training for years already and I am comfortable. Overdoing yourself is worse than under training yourself, since it will sabotage your progress. It takes a lot to learn the proper limit, as you can get caught up in training and willingness to prove others. Trust me on this and also stretching is one of the most important things you do, also split can be a nice party trick to laugh at others who fail at it".

"I, I… Thanks Ruby, now we need to take the shower, since we both stink with sweat and I am hungry" as she said that, her stomach rumbled.

"Lead the way then. You know this place better than me".

With a grunt Blake stood up and led her to their tent for changing clothes and towels, before going to showering station. After cleaning themselves, they both went to get something to eat in an open tent that was made into the field kitchen, where Blake said "You were right, normally I can barely stomach the Wednesday breakfasts, but now I ate more than normally".

"Well I know that feeling, when you have to eat something you hate, or repeating a dish. Better to build your hunger before".

"Well now that we have some free time, so… I thought about going back to the tent and getting a fast nap there. Are you joining? Early mornings are not my thing" Blake asked and yawned in the last part of the sentence, while covering her mouth with a hand.

"Well I have nothing to do, so I will play on my scroll some and also take a nap later, I will have a long night today". Ruby replied as both of them made their way back to their tent.

After lazing for hours on her scroll, while also taking a nap in the meantime and later doing most of the scheduled homework from the professor it started getting dark. Ruby started preparing herself for the operation, while leaving her bag inside the tent and wearing her new combat uniform, that she with the help of the range master back at the base, had designed.

New upper body combat clothes consisted of form fitting white-gray shaded camo one long sleeve undershirt with a soft padding for comfort, shirt of the same color scheme, heavy military type uniform long sleeved hooded blouse with exchangeable small sized ballistic plates inserted from inside layered in a way that they would not block her movement and get stuck on each other, while also not leaving holes. It protected her torso and back in case of emergency. It also had a built-in camelback at the back for drinking water, which ended by a small pipe near her face hidden by a high collar.

On the outside it contained multiple pockets. Four at her stomach and chest for her sniper mode, one at each side for assault mode, a snack pocket for energy batons on her left lower arm and additional pockets on both arms upper parts for documents and maps.

Lower body side which was made the same colors as the upper side was made of 1 piece soft padded durable form fitting underwear that acted as her socks and panties. Long pants with side and top mounted ballistic plate for her knee protection. Upper part had a belt with a mounting for her saber to not hang around wildly, but daty in one place. The pockets on the sides contained secured first aid tools with additional pockets for her things such as scroll, money and spare place.

She had one more spare uniform at her home base in this variant and two more summer green. After thinking for a while, Ruby unmounted her cloak from the old combat dress and mounted it on her new one which a though that she can always hide it beneath the shirt later.

As she was finished, she mounted her weapons and filled the water bag inside combat uniform, so it would be available later and made her way to the landing zone early.

An: Not dropped, just no time to write. Reason:

Work at the workplace, inflation, garden work during summer time and keeping my family with additional refugees living with me fed and happy.

Since the previous chapter to this one I had only around 6 days of free time, where I also wanted to rest and play. Each chapter is literally hours of writing some research on lore and I always try to do it in my free time as I prefer 'to get it done at one time', which in reality took me four times.