Trichromatic
After seeing Sun off for the day, Team RWBY also said their goodbyes to Penny.
"Thanks again for helping us out, Penny. We're glad to have a friend like you with us." Ruby took hold of her hand, holding it gently, remembering when she first found out Penny's secret.
"I've found out so much about Blake today…" Penny remarked. "I won't tell anyone though, so you don't have to worry!"
"That's a relief." Blake sighed a bit. "I was a little worried you talk to the General or something."
"The General? Do you know I'm with him?" Penny seemed a little surprised at what Blake realized too late was a slip-up.
"W-Well you look like someone involved with Atlas Academy." Yang interjected quickly.
"And we know how students from Atlas do like to report things to the General himself!" Weiss added.
"I won't say a word, you can trust me. Friends trust each other with all kinds of stuff, right?" Penny smiled.
"Of course they do, Penny." Ruby nodded. "Just, be safe on your way to wherever you're staying for now, okay?"
"I will, don't you worry! And I'll meet with you tomorrow so we can figure out what to do about what the White Fang is likely to be doing tomorrow night!" she saluted before walking away from the team.
"And like that, I think we've gotten things figured out with time to spare." Yang let out a breath.
"At this rate I feel like we're speedrunning our lives." Ruby commented. "Speaking of which, we should probably get in touch with JNPR about this. We could use the extra help."
"Sounds good to me." Blake nodded as they all left for the next airship to Beacon.
The preparations the next day were relatively minimal, all that really needed to be done was for a scouting party to be gathered and a signal to be given for backup's arrival.
"So you're certain that this heist will happen today?" Pyrrha asked as her and the others were stationed at a nearby cafe.
Much like the original timeline, Blake and Sun were the ones to go and scout out the docks to look for White Fang activity.
"They'll likely strike at nightfall, but we can't be too sure if they'll show up early or not…" Blake remarked while glancing through her binoculars.
Minutes would slowly turn to hours and the sun had finally set with no sign of any activity, in fact, the dust had been offloaded with minimal issue. What was their play? Did she cause some kind of butterfly effect without realizing it?
She had so much time to think that she didn't even realize how late it had gotten. "Blake, are you sure that there was anything to be on the lookout for tonight?" Ren asked through his scroll.
"Yes, tonight was the night where I'd find out Roman Torchwick was involved with the White Fang…" Blake sat up now, waking the snoozing Sun up.
"Well Penny already left due to it being after her curfew. Maybe we cancelled the heist with something else we did?" Yang stated.
"Penny's really nice by the way. I'm glad to have met her." Pyrrha spoke up.
"Come on, let's go home… Maybe we can get some dessert on the way." Jaune insisted, much to Nora's delight.
"We'll wait for Blake." Weiss spoke up.
Sun had dismissed himself from the docks too, considering the whole thing a bust.
"Hey, I'm sure you weren't wrong in your hunch, but maybe now's just not the time due to all the heat." Sun told her before leaving.
That couldn't have been right. Something else was up and she knew it.
"C'mon Blake, you don't need to lose sleep over the same event twice. Whether it happened or not here." Yang put a hand on her shoulder as Blake sighed.
"You're right. Maybe we should look into different heists. See if there's a pattern." Blake shook her head while Yang just sighed, knowing her work was cut out for her now.
"C'mon Ruby, we should get back to Beacon." Weiss yawned and followed after Blake and Yang.
Ruby lingered for a moment. "Hey, I wanna check something at the dock's real quick." she spoke up.
"Be our guest, we'll be waiting for you." Yang assured as Ruby ran over to the docks.
Upon arriving in the same harbor area with the crates, Ruby scanned around the area, wondering if there was something she hadn't caught.
There was in fact, something she didn't catch, but it wasn't what she was looking for in the slightest as a pair of brown and pink eyes opened up behind her.
Neo reeled her weapon back to stab the girl and end her interference in her life once and for all.
Ruby felt the shift in the wind behind her, she also heard the sound of the blade unsheathing echoing thanks to the sea breeze.
Turning around fast, Ruby brought out Crescent Rose in its compact form to Block Neo's attack.
Neo backed herself away as Ruby swung out with Crescent Rose's scythe form, readying her combative stance.
"You…" Ruby looked her in the eyes. "Why are you after me?!"
No answer came as Neo charged for her.
Ruby spun her scythe around her back as Neo slid forward, bringing up Hush's handle right under her chin, and launching her into the air, but before she could get too far, the same handle was then hooked on her ankle and Neo pulled down as hard as she could, knocking the girl to the ground.
Pulling herself back up, Ruby spun around with Crescent Rose, only to shatter an illusion of Neo.
"How'd you find out we'd be after Roman today?!" Ruby called out, still getting no response as Neo's eyes narrowed at her from the shadows while she dove down at Ruby, who quickly fired a gravity round from Crescent Rose, which launched her backwards, away from Neo's attack.
The shorter woman turned to face her, the same angered expression was on her face that Ruby recognized from their encounters on the island. "Wait, did you travel back too?!"
She still got no answer as Neo activated her semblance again, seemingly closing the distance between herself and Ruby while the girl braced herself for an attack, only for the illusion to shatter and the real Neo to still be about another foot away from her, and attempting to stab through her guard.
A quick spin of Crescent Rose, deflected the attack and Ruby then responded in kind by kicking Neo in the gut, the hit actually connecting.
"If you are the Neo I know, then you should want to help me!" Ruby insisted as the woman pulled herself back up and swung Hush's blade at her head again.
Ruby used her semblance to split into petals to avoid the hit, reassembling behind Neo and pointing Crescent Rose's sniper form point blank at the back of her head. "Stop this, now." Ruby glared. "I'm tired of this as I'm sure you are too. Roman's still alive here ya know."
Neo ducked and kicked upwards, knocking Crescent Rose off course as Ruby stumbled back, transforming it into a scythe again.
The shorter woman separated Hush's umbrella from its blade, then spun around with both, forcing Ruby to back away. The girl began to open fire on the woman, shots that were deflected easily by Hush while she ran for Ruby again.
"Please, we can talk about this, Neo!" Ruby pleaded as Neo rammed the open umbrella right through Ruby's guard, knocking her onto her back before quickly spinning around Hush's handle and holding the blade over Ruby. "I want to save Roman too!"
That made Neo stop for a moment now.
"That must be it…" Ruby sat up slowly. "You warned Roman to stay away from the shipyard today because of the fight that happens here."
Neo's eyes narrowed and she combined the two parts of Hush while Ruby began to stand up now.
"Look, we both can help each other here. I can help you protect Roman and you can help me stop Cinder and Salem, and save countless lives." Ruby held her hand out to the shorter woman.
Neo's mind immediately went to her agreement to work with Cinder and she immediately held Hush's blade towards Ruby now, looking her in the eyes hatefully.
"No?" Ruby asked.
Neo shook her head before materializing Roman's hat on her head and taking it off, pointing at it and making gestures.
"Stay away from Roman, or else?" Ruby asked.
Neo nodded.
"Well then, have Roman stay out of our way and we can work something out." Ruby agreed, but Neo glared again. "Look, I really don't want this to end with you hunting me down to kill me again, or anyone really being hurt." she insisted. "Please. We can be friends here, we don't have to be enemies."
Neo again shook her head in refusal of Ruby's offer, pointing at Ruby and glaring, clearly as one last warning as multiple sets of footsteps began to approach.
"Ruby!" Yang called out before Neo leaped back and vanished entirely.
"What just happened here?!" Blake ran to Ruby's side first as she saw that Ruby seemed a little worn out.
"Neo." Ruby answered. "She jumped back with us."
"WHAT?!" Weiss, Blake, and Yang all screamed aloud in unison.
Team JNPR was definitely shocked to hear this from Team RWBY back in their dorm rooms.
"This really is troubling." Ren nodded in agreement. "If Neo knows that we're working against the enemy, she'll likely give them insider info, potentially changing things entirely."
"Not only that, but Roman Torchwick's role is now more important than ever." Ruby added. "We have to ensure he lives, maybe then Neo won't sell us out to the enemy."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that." Blake disagreed. "Criminals like that would pay to have that kind of insider knowledge, they could easily end up turning that insider info over to Salem for a price."
"This is all so much." Weiss rubbed her temples now.
"Look, we'll have time to prepare for things during break. Which does remind me about another thing that can potentially work out in our favor." Ruby took her scroll out, scrolling down until she got to the E section of her contact list.
Back in his office, Ozpin was watching a replay of the fight between Ruby and Neo, unfortunately there was no audio, but the way things ended up unfolding certainly had his attention as he knew that the woman Ruby was fighting was likely another person of interest.
As he was about to close his scroll, a message popped up from Qrow…
[Queen has pawns…]
That message made Ozpin's eyes narrow. Was the woman that Ruby was fighting one of those pawns? He had begun to think.
"Perhaps it's time to test Miss Rose's abilities…" he clicked on the message from Qrow, and switched it to a call…
Commentary: And we're back with another chapter! This one certainly had quite a few plot developments and clear deviations from the original timeline.
It's definitely a little surprising to see Ruby doing so well against Neo here, huh? Well my reasoning for that is Ruby's starting to get better at fighting humanoid opponents. Maybe not quite at the level to beat Neo in a direct fight yet as this one ended at more of a standstill between the two, one where Neo still got the drop on her. But that skill gap is definitely starting to close.
This also marks the end of Volume 1's timeline of events, which makes sense to be so soon since we did jump into things later into Volume 1 than the initiation.
I'm thinking the next chapter I work on, might actually be something not from my big outline document at all, so that'll be a little exciting.