Author's Headnote: Did you like the cliffhanger? Did you? No, of course not. Not many people are fond of being hanged off a cliff. Which is why This chapter will continue off where the cliff was being hanged, from the hanging of cliff of cliffhanging cliffhangers! Also, shout out to user MajorBrony95 for telling me the Yang/Sun pairing is named SolarFlare, I would have gone crazy looking for the pairing name. Now to get back on to topic and let us see what Yang has in store for Ruby and Blake!
RWBY: Festival of Blood: Spoiling the Surprise
Ruby Rose:
Aura Status: 72%
Thirst: Quenched
Semblance: Wilted Petal Burst
Grades: Unchanged from the previous chapters.
Team Activity (Required for advancement to second year): Undecided, likely during the night or indoors.
Team Relations:
- Weiss Schnee: Unchanged
- Blake Belladonna: Ruby appreciates the sacrifices Blake has made, although she feels something more for her.
- Yang Xiao Long: Need to get her new contact lenses, OH NO! SHE MAY FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT RUBY!
End of Main character status report
Beacon Academy, 9:10 PM, Tuesday, RWBY Dormitory
"There you are! Where have you two been?" Yang's voice can be heard as she enters the room.
"GAH! Yang where did you come from!?" Ruby screamed out of surprise.
"From outside, looking for you two."
"Why were you looking for us?"
"I saw you were out of bed, and I wanted to find you. I couldn't find you anywhere on campus and I was worried!"
"And what about me?" Blake asked out of curiosity.
"I wanted to check and see if you didn't run off again! You're my teammate Blake, I don't want anything bad to happen to you." Yang responded.
"Sorry I was so caught up in the momenet I forgot to text you what we were doing!" Ruby stated.
"Oh. And what is it that you two were doing?" Yang asked as her eyes turned red.
Great, now I can't tell her the truth, she'd watch over me like a hawk! I know!
"We were... planning a surprise get-together on Saturday with just the four of us!" Ruby said, hopefully diffusing the metaphorical bomb that is her sister.
"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing and nothing else!" Blake backed Ruby.
"And when will be starting this get-together on Saturday?" Asked out of curiosity.
"7:15 PM, right when the sun is down." Ruby answered.
"Why during the night?"
"It'd be a girl's night out, silly!"
"Ooooh. That's why you've been up all night, you're trying to figure out where we're gonna go!" Yang's eyes turned back to their normal illiac.
"Yep! It's totally that!" Ruby awkwardly laughed.
"So... do you have any ideas?"
"I know we're not going to a bar or nightclub on that night."
"Awwww... whynot?"
"You know what you did."
"Hey, she touched my hair! And she made me explode with a dolphin! I still don't know how she did that."
"Do I even want to know?" Blake asked.
"Nope." Ruby responded. "Anyways, I'm still trying to figure out where to go we will all enjoy!"
"Well, you've only got four days to figure it out anyway." Yang said in turn.
"I'm sure I can handle it."
"Can't wait to see what you have in store, Rubes." Yang smiled.
"This is nice and all, but where's Weiss?" Blake asked.
"Oh. She's blowing off steam in the training grounds, someone likely turned her the wrong way today." Yang replied.
The members of Team R_BY were continuing to divert the topic of conversation to random points of discussion. The topics were ranging from video-games, to TV-shows, to fashion, to even celebrities and boybands. Ruby knows Yang likes boybands, the evidence of that is not lacking. Ever since Yang turned twelve, she always talked about her favorite boyband, said boyband is called 'Guys on the Street'. Ruby never had a preferred taste in music, music was just music to her. She'd listen to hip-hop the same way she'd listen to classical music.
After debating why oranges are called 'oranges' (who named a fruit after a color?), the three finally got bored. Blake went to the bedroom to read some of her literature, whilst Ruby and Yang are playing that fighting game they typically play. Of course, Yang always wins. That's because Yang is exceptionally skilled in video-games, she managed to play the entirety of a very hard game called 'Shadow-Auras' without being hit ONCE! Same goes for it's sequels and prequels. Sure, Ruby is no slouch, but compared to Yang she may as well be a novice.
After failing to beat Yang's ongoing win-streak when it comes to video-games, the two stopped playing. Ruby was a little sore, but had fun, even though she lost every match. Yang was re-adjusting the VR headset, so Ruby walked into the bedroom and seeing what Blake was reading. Blake was reading her typical romance novel, of course. Ruby hears footsteps coming toward the dorm, obviously it was Weiss (her heels make her very loud, terrible for stealth). It is almost 10PM after all, Weiss has a habit of having a 'normal' sleep schedule.
The door to the dormitory opens, footsteps are heard, then the door is closed quietly. It had to be Weiss, Ruby could sense her envy and disgust, along with anger, stress, and embarrassment. she's most likely preparing for bed. So, Ruby stepped back into the living room (which for some reason this dorm has) so she can let Weiss change in peace.
Ruby avoided eye-contact with Weiss as she was about to enter the bedroom. Clearly, she is not in a good mood and doesn't want to deal with Weiss' rants and outbursts. Ruby can hear Weiss and Blake arguing over about changing the scythe-wielders alarm earlier during the day. Ruby wonders if this will become her new normal, or if this alarm arguing was just going to be a one-time thing. Of course, being awake during the night and sleeping during daylight hours when there aren't classes will become her new normal.
There's also trying to hide her condition from Weiss and Yang. Weiss, although warming and thawing out trying to be a nice person, would throw that all away if she had an edge over her leader to usurp Ruby (slaying a vampire would most definitely make her qualifiable, and would likely have the third year take Ruby's place since there's no openings in any of the teams in Beacon as of currently). Yang on the other hand, although Ruby has sisterly love for her, she can never trust Yang with any secrets, she has quite the big mouth and the loose lips. She was also the one who told JNPR and CVFY about Blake being a faunas.
All this thinking and Ruby knows barely anything about vampires, she heads into the bedroom avoiding eye-contact to grab her secret book... only to not find it!
Dangit Blake! I need that to know more about what I'm going through!
She waits until Weiss goes to bed to ask Blake about her book. After Weiss is unconscious in bed (Ruby could tell because she couldn't sense any negativity off of her), Ruby confronted Blake about Ruby's book.
"Blake, where's my Book?" Ruby asked.
"Oh. Sorry, forgot to put it back, here you go Ruby." Blake responded, having the book in her hand.
"What were you doing with this anyway?"
"I was reading up vampiric blood consumption. apparently according to the chapter, vampires don't like the taste of frog's blood. I'd tell you-"
"Sshhhhh. Blake, don't say anything else, Yang's still up!"
"Just take the book and read it somewhere private."
"Gotchia, and thanks Blake!" Ruby taking the Vampirica Encyclopedia from Blake's hands and preceding to exit the dorm.
Beacon Academy, 9:56 PM, Tuesday, Beacon Courtyard
The young girl in red entered the courtyard, albeit it's a public location, but it's certainly nice. The police guarding the legitimate entrances and exits to and from Beacon. Thankfully she never got caught for inverted trespassing, Ruby doesn't know what that would be called. She opens up and reads up on chapter 2 of the Vampirica encyclopedia, reading on the content of blood consumption. Ruby learned that mixing blood into food and drink would sate her thirst, but won't restore her aura. That's a waste of blood, but it would keep up the charade. Animal's blood could be consumed too, but she would need more of it than if she were to drink from a human or faunas. Then there's the frog blood, the thought of it makes Ruby shudder in how disgusting it tastes, why did she have to learn that the hard way? She then opened up on chapter three.
Vampirica Encyclopedia: Volume 1, Chapter 3: The Grimm Inside
All vampires have experienced strange blackouts, and woke up surrounded by dead bodies. This is not a coincidence, this is their grimm taking control, typically called 'going feral'. The grimm is not like the ones a huntsman would fight nor the plausible essence carried by the followers of The Grimm Queen. This grimm is much like the soul, undead and bound to the body. Not all grimm behave the same way, some of the vampire's personality and desires bleed onto the grimm, shaping it's dark and twisted mind. The grimm shares no loyalty to The Grimm Queen told in legends and will attack her hypothetical followers no different from any other being. The intelligence of the grimm is dependent on the age of it, fledglings for example, tend to have more animalistic and low-intellect grimm, whilst older vampires tend to have more intelligent, yet still aggressive ones.
The grimm will always come out when the vampire has gone for too long without drinking, so if one does not wish for the grimm to come out, drink up. Those of weaker willpower will also go feral if their life is in danger, the grimm coming out of animal instinct trying to preserve it's life. Despite rumors from vampire hunters and manipulative vampires, the grimm won't try and take over the vampire's body, it has no reason to.
The presence of grimm also has an interesting side effect, normal grimm will not be hostile to vampires unless provoked. Whether it's the status of vampire physiology or the presence of grimm inside of the vampire's soul is unknown, but it's most commonly believed that it's due to the grimm, not the physical. Since grimm will still attack artificial constructs after all.
Ruby felt angry when she read that, the vampire that turned her incited the grimm to chase him into Vale on PURPOSE! He planned for some naive huntsman huntress to 'save' him and than integrate them into the vampire ranks, and Ruby fell for it! She could only imagine what evil plans that vampire would have her do for his pleasure. Then her memory stated that the 'master' planned on enthralling all of Beacon! The very thought of seeing Ruby's friends being mindless slaves whose entire purpose is to be fed off of disgusts her. Ruby once again felt relieved that she escaped their lair. She didn't want to come back there anytime soon, especially by herself at her current combat skill. Ruby sighed at the thought, but she may actually need to learn the rest of her vampiric abilities in order to take them on.
Then there's also the blackout, what if the vampires were actually responsible for it? What if they snuck into beacon last night in order to bait a trainee such as Ruby to turn them in the first place? The very fact that a vampire was baiting for huntsmen a few hours after Beacon's blackout can't be a coincidence, specifically near the downtown eyecare facility! These are either very convenient coincidences or something big is going on, and Ruby was just caught in the middle of it.
Then of course, this book constantly references this 'Grimm Queen'. According to the book, she's just a legend. But a legend wouldn't be brought up frequently unless it's important information. The very thought that a single woman can rule over grimm scares Ruby. The grimm have been a blight to humans and faunas alike since... ever, and this 'Grimm Queen' is somehow tied to the existence of vampires. At the same time, she is curious. If there is a Grimm Queen, why has no one ever heard of her, or stop her no less. Was all of Remnant being kept in the dark? Unanswered questions revolving around grimm, vampires, and this 'Grimm Queen' filling Ruby's head as if it was a pitcher receiving a gallon of paperwork.
Guess everything can't be convenient for the scythe wielder. After all, she is involuntarily a nocturnal creature of the night that needs to feed on blood to keep an internal grimm from killing everyone on sight! Not to mention the specific hours Ruby can be outside without damaging her aura. Thankfully since it's approaching Autumn, so the nights will be getting longer.
Ruby put her book down, clearly all of this is too much to take in at once. Afterall, she's only been a vampire for almost twenty-four hours, although for eight of them she's been asleep. She thinks down on everything she'll be missing out on because of this. The numerous outdoor activities that are done during the daytime are now nothing more than a mere fantasy for Ruby. Having a picnic in the park, relaxing on the beach, swimming in an outdoor pool, playing a game of soccer with friends, even just spending more than 30 seconds outside during the daytime is nothing more than a wild fantasy to her. Any chance of her being a 'normal girl with normal knees' is no longer a possibility for her.
She shudders to wonder what she'd do when missions start for her. Ruby considers buying goggles and gloves for when her missions start. On one hand, she'd reduce or negate the damage from the sun, on the other, it'd be suspicious for Weiss and Yang for they'd wonder why their leader is covering up her eyes and hands for no reason. Well, so is her aura constantly taking a dive just by being outside. Then of course, there's her aura unable to recover on it's own. It would be awkward to explain, but thankfully that'd only be a problem in combat practice, missions, and the upcoming tournament.
Ruby considered getting a flask, but that'd be too suspicious. Maybe when she's legally older, she could get a flask to fill with blood. Which than brings up another thing to consider, her biological age: it is permanently stagnated at the adolescent age of fifteen. That would be awkward to try and hit on girls when she's older, not to mention if she does end up having a girlfriend or a wife later in her life.
Ruby has plenty of time to herself. She spent the entire last semester keeping team RWBY together, and it almost fell apart when Blake ran off after revealing to Weiss about her dark past. Thankfully, since than the team's been less fidgety and more co-operative. She even has her tactics nearly done, although she needs a name for her and Yang. Ruby should ask Blake about that combo-attack name, since she got the other tactic names from Blake. Ice Flower, Freezerburn, Ladybug, Checkmate, Bumblebee, and in rare circumstances: Newspaper. Although she never asked how Blake came up with those names, but they are clever and straightforward. Her tactics professor doesn't seem to approve though, says the names are unprofessional.
Ruby opened up her scroll and browsed what events and movies will be occurring on Saturday. Let's see here, the one PG-13 movie Yang's been dying to see... yet, Weiss isn't the nerdy sort and Blake isn't much of a comic-book movie fan. There's a screenplay about two lovers from rivaling families, Blake likes romance stories... but, Yang finds screenplays boring and Weiss would more so laugh about the bad parts of the play instead of enjoying it. There's an ice-skating dance show (with a mostly male cast) around that time, it's classy enough for Weiss to enjoy... although Blake would not like the main plot of the story, and Yang would pay more attention to the dancers than the dance.
Of course, Ruby would need to apply in her own interests. But being that this may be the only time she'd spend with her team outside of a school event or upcoming mission, it's more of a secondary objective. After 45 minutes of browsing for something that the whole team would enjoy, Ruby believes she'd found it. It's an Opera about an epic tale about a cursed hero trying to redeem himself whilst also rescuing his lover, who's a princess. It even stars one of the members of Yang's favorite boyband. It's perfect! Thankfully she managed to buy the last four tickets to the show before they ran out, they'd be arriving tomorrow at 11:30 PM, right when everyone else should be asleep.
Phew, I thought I had to do something humiliating to get four tickets! At least I am lucky this time.
The night is still young and Ruby has all the time she has to herself. She could go back to the weapon forge, work on her new project. She could also give Crescent Rose some upgrades, Ruby knows she'll need some in the future. That's all Ruby could think of doing by herself. She's a great-cook with no need for food, so making food for herself in the middle of the night is not only wasteful, but pointless. Studying may also prove useful, but Ruby isn't much of a casual-study goer. She could play video-games, in fact she could do so right now. Just because video-game consoles exist, doesn't mean they are needed for playing video-games. The small scroll screen and the touchscreen is simple enough.
Feeling a bit rebellious, ruby decided to go ahead and go to the weapon forge at night whilst playing some video-games, wearing her headphones of course.
Beacon Academy, 10:46 PM, Tuesday, Weapon Forge
Hmmm... what to do, what to do. Ruby could improve on her current model of Crescent Rose, although isn't quite sure what her sweetheart would need. Ruby could of course, work on that oversized pizza-cutter that shoots out it's blades, not all guns fire bullets after all. Ruby began with the handle; this will contain all the functionalities and utility needed for the weapon. the trigger, the saw buzzer switch, the dust rounds powering the whole thing along with enhancing the blade, all in the large hilt. It's a simple pizza-cutter hilt in shape, but its internal functions are anything but simple. Since the weapon is purely mono-form, there's no need for mecha-shift, allowing more room for the electronics in the weapon.
After spending 2 hours on the hilt, which is 2.5 feet in length, she began working on the guard and the blade slots. There will be two blades, so two blade slots. The guard will be slightly wider than the blades by about 3 inches. The slots will take up 1 foot, 1 inch. The guard will be unlike most pizza cutters, being more like a sword guard. Its curve is slightly towards the blade slot, being able to slow down the flying blades and catching it back into their slots. This can allow a melee strike while the blades are still rotating from being airborne. Stylish, isn't it? The two blade slots are folded toward the guard side, so they are re-enforced and won't cut anyone. They are also thin enough to make room for the wider blades.
As for the blades themselves, she will do a series of test blades, mostly to configure the right material. She starts with a simple iron blade as a test, simply to see how her contraption would work. She takes it outside to the weapon's testing room to test the weapon without damaging the workshop. She turns it on and...
SSSSSZZZZHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
TUTUTUTUTUTUTUTU
SCHLING!
The blade is melted off the weapon and is launched across the range. Thankfully, it hit a test dummy, nearly decapitating it! Now Ruby has to reforge the guard since it has melted Iron solidifying back onto it. Ruby also carefully removed what's left of the blade off the test dummy, and had it melted back down into it's ready-to-be-forged state.
Should have skipped iron and went straight to steel. There are almost no weapons that use pig-iron nowadays, let's see if the pure-undiluted counterpart will do a better job.
Ruby forged a steel blade this time. Ruby was more confident about this blade, since it was made with a more potent and less melty metal. She also reforged the guard back to it's original state. Ruby, with her confident attitude, went back into the weapon's testing room to test the weapon. She turns it on and...
SSSSSZZZZHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
CHICHICHICHICHICHICHICHI
Ruby noticed the metal is getting hot, but it's not melting. Which means she likely has to turn down the speed of the blade a bit so it doesn't overheat. Ruby heads back and tinkers with the hilt, slowing down it's rotation speed by a slight amount, making sure it doesn't overheat. To re-assure this belief, Ruby heads back to the weapon's testing room to test the weapon. She turns it on and...
SSSSzzzhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Yep, it's on as intended, no doubt any training dummy hit by this won't be able to survive. She than turns on the dust enhancers.
Fire overheated the weapon, this is a predictable result, but in the name of science it must be tested anyway.
Ice cools down the weapon, actually making it turn down faster, allowing elemental damage and increase slicing overkill!
As for lightning, she activates the lightning aaaand...
ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP!
The lightning dust as soon as it hits the blade shoots out across the room, causing damage everywhere! Ruby was also receiving a huge degree of electro-shock treatment from this, she quickly turned off the lightning enhancer before more damage could be done, saving what's left the room and what's left of Ruby's life.
This was a bad idea in hindsight!
The weapon's testing room is scorched with electric afterburns, and Ruby swore she had felt her heart beat during that process. Weapon will need to be insulated for both heat and electricity, to avoid damage to the collateral and the self. But first, cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning. She put the weapon in Ruby's personal cabinet along with the blueprints. She than gathered a mop and a bucket, filled with cleaning fluids. Ruby mopped the floors, scrubbed the walls & ceilings, and repaired the test dummies. If she left this unattended, she may as well have been put on probation for making an incredibly dangerous weapon that nearly destroyed an entire room. She checks her aura and sees it has gone down an entire 10%!
She'll have to try again tomorrow, maybe than she'll come up with a name. She heads back to the dorm to finally take a shower!
Beacon Academy, 3:54 AM, Wednesday, RWBY Dormitory
Ruby walks back into the dorm, she's quiet since everyone's asleep. She quietly strips out of her clothes and heads into the shower. She's showering with lukecool water, she'll need only a small amount of hot water to wash off the smell of cooked flesh, and the smell of death that is her clinical physiology. She spent 15 minutes in there, cleaning herself up properly after being electrocuted and cleaning up an entire room! She quietly dried herself off and put on her bandanna and pajamas. Since it's one hour before the sunrise at 5:15 AM: she sets her alarm to 2:30 PM, climbs up to her bunk, wrapped her blanket over her, closed her eyes, stopped breathing, and goes to sleep... hopefully things go better next time.
Author's Footnote: That was too close, Ruby was almost found out. We're approaching around five more days until the time volume 2 starts in the canonical timeline. This was an interesting chapter to write, I had a couple of blocks writing this. And don't think I've made those references to the 'Grimm Queen' gone unnoticed; it's been referenced in three of the chapters in that encyclopedia. I've also had Ruby spend some of her 'me-time' on something I know she loves, weapons. I'd figure someone who has the night all to herself would get bored and do something to pass the time without waking everyone up, what better way to do that than to build a giant pizza cutter? Speaking of the Pizza Cutter, if you have any name suggestions for the weapon, leave them in the reviews. Same goes with questions, comments, suggestions, and criticism.