In the days following their trip into Vale, Ruby didn't get anything out of Blake nor Weiss. What had started on the airship spread around Beacon campus like wildfire. Especially among the freshmen. Whenever Ruby was with Blake, she noticed more people stealing little glances at them. Their room had gotten very awkward and silent in the last few days. Weiss and Blake were more distant from each other than ever.
One day, Blake entered the room a bit after the school day had ended. Weiss was doing homework when she came back. Once Blake was on her bed, Weiss packed up her things and left, all without a word. This had been happening ever since that day. Ruby was sick of it. Blake looked hurt by it, but when she was settled on her bed, she just started reading a book.
"Yang. Down." Ruby marched across the room as Yang hopped down from her bunk. She played with her hair as Ruby plucked the book out of Blake's hands. "We're talking. Now."
"Ruby, please-" Blake said.
"No, Blake." Ruby sighed and sat down next to her. "We need to talk about this. We can't just keep on like we have these past few days. We're supposed to be a team! But this? You and Weiss haven't talked in days! She's not even trying to hide the fact that she's avoiding you!"
"All you have to do is tell us that those people on the airship were wrong," Yang told her. "Just tell us they got the wrong Belladonna. That it doesn't mean anything that you have the same last name and happen to be a faunus. It's like saying any people with the same last name and a shared trait are related! It's like saying any Rose with silver eyes is Ruby's cousin!"
"Well, with how rare silver eyes are, I mean-" Ruby shook her head. "Nevermind! Yang is right. You just have to tell us that they were wrong."
Blake looked between the two of them before looking down at her bed. "That's the thing…" She started to cry. "They aren't wrong!"
"What?" Yang asked.
"My dad… he was the high leader of the White Fang. Up until five years ago. I was one of them, of course."
"Okay, so your dad was the leader! So what? The White Fang only got real unpopular after that, right? He didn't have anything to do with it! You can just tell Weiss that!" Yang said.
"No, no, I can't!" Blake insisted.
"Why not?" Ruby asked.
"When my dad stepped down… I didn't leave the White Fang. I didn't leave them. Not until right before the school year started!"
"Oh…" Ruby breathed.
"That's going to be a harder sell," Yang said. "But you have left them! You realized they were wrong! Weiss has to understand that!"
"I can't!" Blake hugged herself tightly. "I'm scared… what will Weiss think? I'd just make her think even less of me…"
"Blake, not saying anything is just going to make it worse," Yang said. She knelt before Blake, lightly brushing her hair out of her face. "If you don't, she'll just assume the worst about you."
"I can't, Yang…"
Her voice was small and defeated. Something about it tore Yang apart inside. She clenched her fist and then looked at Ruby.
"Do we really have to force her? Just look at her. She's terrified."
'Force' was a strong word. Was it right to just let Blake and Weiss's relationship continue to deteriorate because they were both too scared to actually sit down and talk to each other? Ruby stood up, having made up her mind. She handed Blake her book back. If Blake didn't want to, she wasn't going to force it on her. She'd come around to it someday. She'd have to. Or, maybe… maybe Ruby hoped that letting it fester would fix it. Things couldn't stay like this, but with enough time, one of them would probably just explode, and they'd have no choice but to talk then. Ruby walked over to her bunk and gripped the first rung of the ladder.
"Blake, thanks for trusting me and Yang like that. Your secret is safe with us."
"Thank you, Ruby…"
As she climbed up, Ruby saw Yang cradling Blake. She hoped she didn't push Blake too hard. That she wouldn't be resented for what she had done.
The next afternoon, the girls were back in Vale. Weiss had insisted that they bring their weapons so they could do a little bit of fine tuning and accessory shopping in the city. The Vytal Festival would be starting in a few months' time, and preparations for it were already underway. Weiss was in a noticeably better mood that day as they marched through the streets. It was so early in preparations that there was little more to see than some streamers and banners in the process of being made, but it appeared to satisfy her.
"Why are you bringing us to the harbor?" Yang asked.
"Because of our guests, of course!" Weiss said. "Students from all over the world will be spending the summer in Vale leading up to the festival and the tournament! Knowledge is power, Yang, so the sooner we can begin studying the opposition, the better we'll perform!"
"So this is a recon mission? Sneaky, sneaky, Weiss Schnee."
"We got a stowaway! Officers, help!" The girls turned towards a large cruise liner that had recently pulled into the harbor.
The first thing they noticed was a light post near the harbor. Hanging off of it, upside down, was a young man. He was hanging by a monkey tail, and eating a banana. Ruby noticed a man in a dark hoodie and hat pass them by, shoulders slumped and hands deep in his pockets. It looked like he was trying to hide his face. He was walking oddly fast. A pair of police officers walked past them towards the light post, and she noticed that the man quickened his pace.
"Alright, son," said one of the officers. "I'm going to have to ask you to come down from there and follow us to the station. We've got a few questions for you."
"No can do, officer," he said. "I'm no stowaway. I'm a guest here!"
"Very likely," said his partner. "Come down here and we won't have any trouble. Keep talking though, and we'll charge you with resis-" The banana peel landed on the officer's face. "Why you little…!"
The young man swung himself from the lightpost and broke off into a sprint. He looked at the girls as he passed them. For a second, Ruby could've sworn he winked at them. The next moment, the officers were chasing after him. Then it clicked.
"Wait, officer!" Ruby called. "You have the wrong guy!" She pointed in the opposite direction. The man who had passed her was sprinting now. "The stowaway is over there!"
"What the hell?!" One of the officers did a double take, looking after the man, and then the faunus who had run off. "Thanks, miss!" He started after the man, and his partner followed him.
Ruby looked at Blake, who was a little red. Ruby couldn't tell if it was from anger or embarrassment. She could understand why someone might find the guy who winked at them attractive.
"What just happened?" Weiss asked.
"I don't really know," Yang said. "but that guy looked about our age, right? And he said he was a guest! Picking up what I'm putting down, Weiss?"
"He must be one of the visiting students! We have to observe him!" Weiss started running off after him, and the rest of her teammates followed.
He was a lot faster than they were, and it didn't take Ruby long to accept the fact that they had lost him. If trying to find him made Weiss happy, though, then it was worth amusing her, at least for a little while. The girls had to weave in and out of crowds to try and keep up with him.
Weiss turned a corner, saying, "Just where did he-!"
There was a crash, and the other three heard a loud thud. They turned the corner to see Weiss on the ground. Ruby helped her up, and she noticed what, or rather, who, she had bumped into. A girl was just laying on the ground, looking at them.
"Um… are you okay?" Ruby asked.
"Affirmative!" Said the girl. Yet she just continued to lay there on the ground.
"So…" Weiss scratched her head. "Do you plan on getting up anytime soon?"
"Oh, yes!" The girl launched herself up and the team took a step back.
"Well," Weiss said, "we've definitely lost him at this point. Let's just go."
"Take it easy, whoever you are," Yang said.
"Later, friend!" Ruby said.
"Are you sure it was a good idea to call that girl your 'friend'?" Blake asked. "She seemed a little eccentric, to say the least."
"Oh, it's fine! It isn't like we're ever going to see her… again…"
Weiss stopped short to avoid hitting her again. She looked back to where they had left her, then back at the girl again. "Wha- how did you…?"
"What did you call me?" She pointed at Blake and Ruby in the back.
"Oh!" Blake defensively waved her hands. "I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry if it bothered you."
"No, not you." Weiss and Yang stepped out of her way, and she walked up to Ruby. "You. What did you call me?"
"I… uh…" Weiss and Yang were both signaling wildly. Ruby wasn't quite sure what the signals meant, if they meant anything, but the message they were trying to get across was clear. 'Don't tell the girl you called her "friend"'. "Called you 'friend?'" Ruby added with a shrug. Her teammates facepalmed.
"Friend? Friend?" The girl grasped Ruby's hands. Her grip was like iron. "We're friends?!"
"No, you can't be! You don't even know each others' names!" Weiss objected.
"Oh, I'm sorry! My name is Penny! What's yours?"
"I'm Ruby. It's… nice to meet you?"
"It's nice to meet you too, Ruby!"
"So, uh, Penny… I'm sorry, but my friends and I had some plans, so we can't really stay. We could catch up later, maybe?"
"Oh, yes! That's okay with me!" Penny let go of Ruby's hands and backed away a bit. "I hope you have fun then, friend! I'll be seeing you later!"
"Yeah!" Yang and Weiss started dragging Ruby away, but she craned her neck to look at Penny. "See you later!"
"Ruby, what was that?!" Weiss demanded.
"I don't know, I panicked! I mean, she didn't seem like a bad girl, did she?"
"Eccentric, like I said. Which isn't inherently bad." Blake said. "But…" The four passed the remains of another Dust shop. It had only been a few days since the last time they heard about a Dust theft. "Oh no."
"Another one?" Ruby asked.
"This is just weird," Yang added. "Who could have done this?"
"I don't know," Weiss said.
They kept on walking. Weiss quickly glanced over her shoulder. Ruby looked over her shoulder too, since she wasn't sure what Weiss was looking at. The only thing behind her was Blake. When Blake stopped, Ruby's heart sank and she stopped too. Tears were welling up in Blake's eyes, but she looked furious. She knew they couldn't run from this forever, but Ruby didn't think that it would happen so soon.
"Weiss!" Yang and Weiss stopped. "What was that?! Don't tell me you think I had something to do with it?!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Weiss said.
"Like hell! You say you don't know who could've done it then immediately look back at me?! There isn't any proof that the White Fang had anything to do with that robbery! Or the last one we heard about, either!"
"Maybe to you, but there's no doubt about it to me," Weiss said. "Faunus like the White Fang are all cheats, murderers and thieves."
"What did you just say?!"
"Don't try to defend them, Blake!" Weiss said. "You were one of them, weren't you? You know how they are." Weiss walked up to Blake. "You can't defend their evil. Don't even try. You haven't seen the pain they cause innocent people, have you? You haven't been to the funerals of the people they slaughter. You haven't heard their loved ones' anguished wailing. You haven't heard children crying for their fathers and mothers to come home, knowing that they never will. All of that pain, heartache, and suffering, all because of the White Fang. Go ahead and try to tell me that they all aren't how I described. A bunch of bloodthirsty animals."
Blake wanted to say something, but she couldn't. She had hated what the White Fang had become over the last few years. She had run away from them because of it; because of people like Adam. But she knew what they were supposed to be; what they were supposed to represent. They were faunus who had had enough of the world's injustices. The lack of representation, the arbitrary refusal of service, the racial profiling. Years upon years of mistreatment drove them into a corner. They were misguided now, but she couldn't fault the cause they wanted to fight for that drove them to the White Fang in the first place.
"So, Blake? Try to tell me that the White Fang isn't full of murderers!"
"It isn't!" She cried. "It isn't all of them. They've definitely killed people. I can't deny that. But not all of them have. I haven't. But that probably doesn't mean anything to a bigoted bitch like you. You must just think we're all the same."
Blake ran off.
"Blake!" Ruby didn't spare Weiss a glance. She took off after her.
Weiss turned on her heel and started stomping away. Yang looked after Ruby and Blake, then sighed. She was worried about Blake, but she couldn't very well leave Weiss alone. Not now.
Blake had retreated into an alley in the city. It was tight, and cramped, but she was just able to fit into it. She was curled up in a ball, pressed against the wall. Blake had said she hadn't killed anyone. She hadn't. Not directly, at least. As she sat there in the alley, her mind flashed back to her last mission for the White Fang. The guards she had left behind to Adam's mercy. She had as good as killed them, hadn't she? Maybe Weiss wasn't totally wrong to just think of her as another terrorist. Blake thought she would be different, though. She wanted to believe she was different. She just assumed all of the Schnees were prejudiced devils because of everything she'd heard about their company. She wanted to believe Weiss was different, but Blake was wrong about that. Now what was she going to do? She couldn't very well return to them.
"Hey."
Could she go home? It had been so long, though. Would her parents just welcome her home with open arms?
"Hey!"
She had rejected them. She had defied them. She had run away from them. How could they just let her come home? If not home, though, where would she go?
"Hey, alley cat!"
Blake's head whipped up, her eyes reddened by tears and filled with rage. What racist idiot would dare to call her-
She looked into a pair of welcoming blue eyes. They were upside down. She looked up, and recognized the boy she had seen with the others earlier. The one who had winked at her. He was hanging from a pipe. He flipped onto the ground and held out a hand towards her.
"You aren't looking too hot there," he said. "How about I, uh… buy you tea or something? That's probably more fun than sitting here in this dank alley."
Blake looked at his hand for a moment, not sure what to do. He was a stranger, but… he was a faunus. Someone who could probably understand her. Someone who could sympathize. If she needed anything right now, it was sympathy. She took his hand and let him lead her out of the alley. The two went to a nearby cafe, and the young man ordered two cups of green tea. She had learned that his name was Sun, and that he was a student visiting from Vacuo.
"So…" he began, "what was the alley thing about? I just saw you with your friends." Blake stared into her cup of tea. She had only gone with him because she believed that he was dependable, but now she was hesitant. "Or you could just not tell me. I respect that."
"No… if anyone would understand, it's probably you. What do you think about the White Fang, Sun?"
"What do I think?" He sipped his tea as he thought. "That's a good question. They aren't really a thing back home. Faunus have it pretty good in Vacuo. But, uh… 'pretty good' in Vacuo is 'pretty crap' basically everywhere else that isn't Atlas. Outside of Vacuo, though… well, I haven't heard good things. I can tell you that much."
"Do you just think they're a bunch of thugs?"
"It's what I've heard, anyway. Though, since I got right off the boat and had the cops think I'm a criminal, I'm guessing the answer you're looking for is 'no'."
"A… colleague of mine thinks the White Fang has been behind a series of Dust robberies in Vale lately. I don't think it's that simple, though."
"And because you're a faunus, she jumped the gun and thought you were a double agent or something?"
"Yeah…"
"Then we prove her wrong!"
"And how would we do that?" Blake asked.
"Well." He pulled out his Scroll. "These things have cameras in them. So if we go to where we'd expect a robbery, record it, and there's no White Fang, this girl you're talking about can't call B.S when you tell her the White Fang didn't do it, because you'd have proof then!"
"You're right about that. That sounds easier said than done, though…"
"Actually, I don't think it will be. I overheard some things on the ship. There's supposed to be an SDC shipment coming in soon. Tonight, actually."
"How did you overhear that?"
"A man has his ways," he said with a wink.
"Are you sure you weren't the stowaway?"
"Let's finish this tea then figure out our plan, yeah? If you want to clear the White Fang's name, we should have something in mind."
"Yeah, you're right."
There was something oddly comforting about it. The two had just met, yet Sun was willing to help Blake with the things eating away at her. Was it some sort of faunus solidarity? Or was it just him being a good person? Blake couldn't quite tell.
Ruby had chased after Blake, but she was too slow. Blake lost her, and quickly. Ruby tried calling her Scroll, but all of her calls went straight to voicemail. She was left wandering around Vale, trying to find some lead, any lead, as to where Blake could be. She asked people wherever she could, showing them pictures on her Scroll, but no one had seen her at any point since she ran off.
"Ruby! Hello!" Penny ran up to her. "What are you doing here? Why are you alone? Where are you friends?"
"Oh, Penny…" Her timing was less than ideal, but Ruby couldn't exactly just brush her off. That would simply be rude. "It's… a long story. A story that probably isn't mine to share. I'm looking for one of my friends. Blake, the faunus girl. Have you seen her around?"
"Oh, no… but I could help you look! I'm good at looking for things!"
"You don't have to, Penny! I'm sure you have your own things going on. You don't have to go out of your way for us."
"Oh no, but I want to! You're my friend, and friends help each other, right? That's why you're looking for this Blake, right?"
"Well, I can't really argue with that…" Ruby smiled at Penny. She had only met her earlier today, but she was an oddly sweet girl. "Thank you, Penny, really."
"Let's go, Ruby!" Penny grabbed her hand. "We have an entire city to scour!"
Yang had been following Weiss through the streets of Vale. Her attempts to call out to Weiss had fallen on deaf ears. The fact that Weiss was just ignoring her was annoying, but not exactly surprising. Weiss suddenly stopped. She parked herself on a set of stairs and buried her face in her hands.
"Weiss?" No answer. "So you're finally ready to talk?" Still nothing. "Come on, Weiss, say something. That wasn't a good look, you know. You didn't really mean those things, did you?"
"I don't know…"
"You don't know? How do you just not know?"
"My experiences with the faunus haven't been very positive. None of them have been. My mind just… my mind just…"
"Pictures all faunus you see as White Fang spies?" Yang crossed her arms. Weiss's lack of a response was damning. "Weiss, the faunus aren't a hive mind. You can't just think they're all the same because your only exposure to them is a bunch of bad apples. If you do, they're you're just as bigoted as Blake said you were. How would you feel if she said you were some racist she devil just because you were born with the last name Schnee?"
"She did!" Weiss cried. "That's exactly what she told me! But… she said she didn't want to. That she wanted to get to know Weiss Schnee, instead of the Schnee named Weiss.
"She said she hated my family, and the company, but she didn't want to let that hatred make her hate me. Because she didn't know me. I hate this… I hate myself… I know that this is wrong… that it isn't fair… that she deserves better… I just don't know why I find this so hard! It really shouldn't be!"
"Do… you want to know what I think?" Yang asked.
"Yes!"
"I think that you're just afraid. I'm sure Blake's had her fair share of run ins with bad humans in her life. Trusting people like us probably didn't come all that easily. Especially with someone like you. She was probably afraid that you'd hurt her somehow. …Which you did, but that's besides the point. The point is, the fact that she wanted to get to know you was stronger than the fear she felt of potentially being hurt by you. That's why you're like this now. You're just going through the same thing. You want to see Blake the girl first, and Blake the faunus second, but you're scared that you'll live to regret it. That you'll trust Blake and she'll betray you some day. That's the thing about trust, though, Weiss. It's always a gamble. That's just how it is. You have to be willing to play the game to win it in the first place. Blake was willing to play, so you have to ask yourself. Are you ready?"
Was she ready? Was Weiss really ready to trust Blake? Yang wasn't wrong. She was terrified of being hurt. Time and time again, she had heard about people she would see at dinners and parties simply not being there anymore. Vacation homes abandoned because of bomb threats. Or simply because they had been bombed. All of it pinned on the White Fang. Pinned on an organization made up exclusively of faunus. That was all she had really heard of the faunus. The only point of reference she had. She wasn't exactly afraid that Blake would slit her throat while she slept, or try to blow her up, or anything, but she was afraid of something going wrong. Anything at all.
A few months at Beacon couldn't simply erase a childhood living in fear of the faunus because of the White Fang. It couldn't be that easy to just bring herself to trust Blake, could it? Could it really be so difficult not to see the ears and the tail before the girl she had shared a room with for so long? The fact that Weiss didn't have a concrete answer just made her want to cry even more. She wanted to trust Blake. She desperately wanted to, but the closer she got to convincing herself it was the right thing to do, the more her imagination ran wild.
When she found her; if they found her, Weiss would have to face her fears. She'd have to force herself to sit down with Blake, and she'd have to force herself to have a long talk with her. For the sake of their team. For the sake of the friendship that Blake had wanted to foster.
Once night had fallen, Blake and Sun headed for the docks of Vale. They were hiding atop the roofs of the warehouses, waiting for something to happen. They had already been there for some time now.
"Damn, if I knew we'd be sitting here for long, I'd have grabbed some food or something…" Sun said.
"It's too late to turn back now," Blake told him.
An airship started to descend. Once it touched down, the landing hatch opened and people began filing out of it. Blake saw their masks first, then the familiar red symbol on the back of their clothes.
"We don't have a lot of time here, people!" One of them said, "Hurry it up with the tow cables!"
"Is that them?" Sun asked. He was recording, just like they had planned.
"Yes… so it really was them…Why, though? What could they even want with this Dust?"
"What's the holdup?" After a few minutes a well dressed man exited the airship. "In case you haven't noticed, with your little costumes we aren't the most inconspicuous band of thieves. Can you ani- fine gentlemen hurry it up so we can get out of here before the cops show up?"
"Does the White Fang normally work with humans?" Sun whispered.
"No, they don't. They'd never work with humans. Especially one who has to catch himself before going so far as to call us… animals." The word passing through Blake's lips in relation to faunus infuriated her. She took a knee, drawing Gambol Shroud. "There's more to this. There has to be. Are you still with me, Sun?"
He stopped the recording and put away his Scroll. "Count me in!"
"Alright… we just need to figure out what he's doing here, then we can get out."
Sun took out a pair of red nunchucks that looked like shotguns. He connected them all and rested the bō staff they combined to form across his shoulders. In and then out. That was all the two needed to do. This couldn't be that hard, could it? Blake had had a terrible day, and this wasn't looking to be a good night. If there was anything that could salvage it, it would be proving her fellow faunus innocent, and putting that rotten human in his place.
This is a bit of an odd author's note, admittedly. I am enjoying writing so far, but I wanted to do a bit more, if possible. I thought it would be fun and interesting to try and turn the story into an audiobook of sorts as well. Of course, that means relying on people to provide the voices for the members of the cast. Right now, the plan is to cast characters introduced in Volume 0.5, then Volume 1, and so on. So auditions for Volume 0.5 are currently open. A lot more information can be found at these two links. It goes without saying, but strip the odd spaces and slashes from the links, since fanfiction doesn't like links it seems.
www . reddit ./com/r/RWBY/comments/wz7lqq/rwby_gears_of_fate_volume_05_casting_call/?utm_source=share _medium=web2x =3
www . castingcall .club/projects/rwby-gears-of-fate
Any auditions are appreciated, as is any sharing that someone could do to people that they think might find the project interesting.
