Touring The City

When she had gotten the invitation to hang out, Emerald was very much taken aback, the notion of any stranger wanting to give her their time was certainly unusual, but then she remembered what Cinder had ordered her to do, and what her mission was, to gather intel on the enemy and the whole city of Vale…

"Hey, Em! Can I call you Em?!" Ruby called out to her from just a short distance away.

"Oh um, yeah you can call me that!" Emerald sheepishly chuckled as the girl walked over. Her overly happy and friendly demeanor was a turn off enough, now she had a nickname for her?

"Great!" Ruby smiled before coming to a stop in front of her. "So, I can take you around any part of town you'd like to see. Name it, and we'll go there."

Emerald paused and stopped to think for a moment. "Know any good dust shops? I've been meaning to get my team enough stuff to last the semester."

That was a clear lie and Ruby herself knew that it was probably so that they could learn of some more, potentially less well known places to rob. "Oh uh, sure. Although I'm not sure if my usual spot's restocked yet. They were robbed a little while back." she explained while beginning to lead Emerald along.

Great… Emerald thought in annoyance. Doesn't this kid shop at any smaller shops that Roman may have overlooked? Sure he seemed like he knew the city, but new stores pop up as frequently as they shut down. Okay, time for Plan B.

"So…" Emerald spoke up again. "How about your team? They all seem like interesting and capable fighters in their own right. You said your team was RWBY, right?"

"Oh uh, yeah that's right." Ruby nodded while opening the door to the Dust shop she did actually like frequenting, at least before they were robbed by Roman. "We're all tournament ready pretty much. Well, we still gotta get through the start of our next semester at Beacon before we get to the Vytal Festival. But we've been training real hard for this. I hope your team's been training real hard too."

"Oh believe me, we've been preparing for this for years." Emerald spoke up, another obvious lie to the girl she was leading along, but they both chose to feign ignorance to that fact.

"So, Em… How about you tell me a little more about yourself?" Ruby asked, kneeling down in front of the shelf of magazines. "Why'd you want to become a huntress?"

Was this a trap question? Emerald wasn't prepared to be put on the spot like this, and the flustered look on her face spoke volumes for that. "Oh um… I just wanted a better life for myself." she explained. "What about you? Why do you wanna be a huntress?" Nice deflection, Emerald.

Ruby stood up now, with an open weapon's magazine in her hand. "Oh well. I've just always wanted to help people. The world's a scary and messed up place." she stared at the broken window of the shop. "People like the Torchwick guy that robbed this shop… They're always either in it for themselves, in it because they have no choice, or because they're just too cynical to think otherwise." Ruby admitted.

Despite how often she held this image in front of her team through the thicket of everything they've been through prior to jumping back, Ruby saw aspects of the world that made her realize how jaded every person could be, how imperfect the world was, and how much it constantly tried to shoot down that optimistic attitude she always tried to have.

"I know life likes to beat those less fortunate down. That's why I feel like it's my job to be that smiling huntress who helps those people to their feet. Show those cynical people that they're wrong, that there can be hopeful and good people in the world." Ruby closed the magazine and set it down on the shelf, looking at Emerald with a smile. "That's why I want to be a huntress."

Emerald froze for a second, there was a part of her that wanted to burst out into laughter at this girl's naiive statement of wanting to be there for less fortunate people. How could she know?! How could she know a damn thing about what she's suffered through, the life she led before she met Cinder in those slums months ago.

"That's an awfully big reason for being a huntress." Emerald returned a fake smile to Ruby. "How are you going to help everyone? You're only one person."

"I know that every one person I help will inevitably lead to others." Ruby crossed her arms. "Who knows? Maybe a kid in a village I save tomorrow, might eventually grow up to be another huntsman who helps twice as many people than I end up helping. That's what's great about it. And if I can create a slightly better world with just one act of kindness, then I know my life wasn't wasted."

The thief wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Looking at Ruby's eyes, there was something about them that upon a second glance made it seem like she had seen a lot despite her young age.

Emerald's thinking on the matter was cut short by the sound of her stomach grumbling.

"Did you not eat breakfast?" Ruby put her hands on her hips while leaning towards her.

"I usually skip it…" Emerald nervously laughed.

"Well not here in Vale you don't!" Ruby quickly marched up to her and took her hand. "We're getting some food in your belly right at once!"

Emerald really didn't have a say on this as she was dragged off before another word could be spoken.

They had found a quaint little cafe on a street corner, it was incidentally the same one Blake had brought the others to when initially talking with Sun about her past.

Emerald had kept her food order simple, ordering a breakfast omelet with a cup of coffee on the side.

Ruby only had a cup of coffee on her side of the table, filled with enough sugars and creams to make Emerald's eyes bulge out from just a whiff of the drink.

"So you really want to help people…" Emerald took a sip from her coffee…

"Of course I do." Ruby nodded to her. "I believe that people like us have all the power to make a difference in the world, even through the smallest of acts. There's just something… Something simple about that ideal to me." she confessed. "Like it's etched into my very being. Guess I do partially have my mother to thank for that one… Although she's not with us anymore..."

"Oh sorry to hear about that…" Emerald looked down at her coffee. Maybe that was where that look from earlier came from? The look of pain from losing someone. Something Emerald couldn't relate too much with.

"It's alright." Ruby assured her after setting down her now emptied cup of coffee. "I was little when it happened and it's been years so I kind of moved past it. Doesn't mean I don't miss her."

"Who could replace a loved one?" Emerald asked with a downtrodden look on her face. The thought of Cinder came to her mind… Cinder couldn't replace her, could she? No, she was needed, she couldn't be replaced because of the use she had to Cinder.

She would be snapped back to reality when a loud and booming female voice spoke up from a distance. "SALUTATIONS, FRIEND RUBY!" the voice of Penny Polendina called out from across the cafe.

"Penny?!" Ruby sat up in her seat, surprised to see the girl now and glancing back to Emerald. "Oh um… Em, say hi to my friend, Penny. Penny, this is Emerald." she gestured between the two to greet each other.

"Oh… Hi." Emerald held her hand out.

"Greetings, Emerald!" Penny shook her hand, gripping it a little too tightly as Emerald tried not to yelp in pain.

"Penny, you're holding her too tightly." Ruby pried Penny's hand off of Emerald's.

I've heard of killer handshakes… But that was beyond normal… Maybe an unchecked strength semblance? The thief took a mental note while she shook her hand off.

"Oh, my apologies, Emerald!" Penny bowed her head.

"It's… Okay." Emerald moved her fingers, relieved that they could all still move. The last thing she needed to do was to explain to Mercury how she broke her fingers shaking a weird girl's hand.

"I was hoping to engage in some friendship activities with you today, Ruby." Penny exclaimed. "I've learned of this arcade with all kinds of games to play!"

"You wanna hit up the arcade?" Ruby glanced back at Emerald who simply shrugged her shoulders.

This girl was unreal… Emerald was struggling to keep in rhythm with this dancing game that was at the arcade, yet there Penny was, dancing to each song perfectly, like she'd downloaded a choreography or something.

Of course, that was the likely truth, at least that's what Ruby speculated while watching from the side with a large stuffed Ursa plushie clutched in her arms.

"I think that's a new high score…" Penny noted.

"Penny…" Emerald heaved, falling to a knee. "No offense, but I think that all of the scores you've set on these machines are high scores…"

"Oh… Is that a bad thing? I thought you were supposed to try your hardest at these games." Penny frowned.

"You're supposed to have fun is what you're meant to do." Ruby walked up to her, handing her the Ursa plush while offering her hand to Emerald. "Hey, sorry Penny kinda took over our little city tour."

"It's… Okay…" Emerald grunted. It wasn't okay. But she wasn't going to tell that to this "saint" of a girl. Seriously? How could anyone stand the presence of that Penny girl?!

Penny was looking at her scroll with wide eyes now after a message lit up her screen. "Oh no. It's past my curfew! Apologies for the sudden departure friends, Ruby and Emerald! I'll see you again soon!" she ran out the door, giving a wave.

"Hey, wait I thought you said the plush was mine to keep!-" before Ruby could argue any more about that, the Ursa plush was tossed in her direction and hit her square in the face, knocking her to the ground. "Thaaaaaaanks…" Ruby groaned from the arcade floor.

Emerald rolled her eyes and helped Ruby up now. "Hey, I actually wanna thank you for today."

"You do?" Ruby was still shaking off that fall.

"Yeah, I don't think I've had a day quite this interesting since I got here." she admitted.

"Well hey, when your team starts staying at Beacon next semester, look me up. I'd be happy to hang out again." Ruby smiled.

"I will. Stay safe out there, okay?" Emerald gave Ruby a brief hug before finally parting ways and sighing in relief.

"It'll be too soon if I see either of those girls again." Emerald rubbed her temples.

Looking at the plush Ursa, Ruby let out a sigh. "Why is progress with this kind of thing always slow?"

Upon her return to the warehouse, Emerald took a seat atop a crate of stolen dust with a hand on her face. She was starting to doze off a little.

"Glad to see you back, Emerald." Cinder spoke up, which jolted Emerald awake.

"Cinder!" Emerald turned around and watched as she approached.

"Gather any interesting intel about the city or those kids today?" she asked.

"Nothing really on the city side of things that we don't already know." Emerald began her report. She was thinking about what Ruby had said about her mother being gone and their discussions about why she wanted to be a huntress.

"Nothing from those kids either. Nothing apart from the fact that we need to be ready to answer more questions they might ask us. One question the girl asked really threw me for a loop." she confessed.

"And which one would that be?" Cinder crossed her arms.

"Why do you wanna be a huntress?" Emerald quoted exactly.

"Hmm. If you want I could help come up with an easy cover story for that. I'm aware you're a thief who can come up with things on the fly, but perhaps the personal nature of that question made it a little harder to answer for you, no?"

Emerald clammed up a bit here now. "Something like that."

"And you're sure there's nothing else I should know about any of those children?" Cinder asked, looking her in the eyes, her one uncovered eye had a visible glow inside of it.

"N-No…"

"I know when you're lying to me, Emerald." Cinder's hand lit up with a flame.

"Okay! We had an unexpected guest during our hangout! Another girl that looked like she was from Atlas. She was super strong or something, and she performed very unnaturally at the arcade." Emerald stomped her foot down. "That's all I know, I swear!"

"Not so hard, now is it?" Cinder chuckled, dispersing the flame. "Minor details like that might be easy to overlook, but they could play a major role down the road. You've earned a night's rest, Emerald."

"Thank you, Cinder." Emerald bowed with a hand over her heart before walking over to the offices in the warehouse that Cinder had made into a makeshift living quarters for her and Mercury.

She couldn't help but feel a strange desire to defend Ruby bubbling up inside of her… Maybe that girl's optimism was just contagious or something?

Oh well, a night in with Mercury heckling her would pull her back in line easily...

Commentary: And here's a rather calm chapter after the last one with that fight. Just some character interactions between Ruby, Emerald, and Penny.

I would also like to mention in this commentary section that I have plans for things later on the story, that happen after the established timeline of the show. Which the main policy I'm having for now is that anything after Volume 8 didn't happen. I mean if Volume 9 introduces some interesting stuff, I may decide to implement it, I also might not.

But my ideas are over-the-top in nature and I hope they won't become detractors for this story when we come to that point(I just really love my JRPG and Shonen tropes). Just as a little teaser, I plan on putting endgame hints in the story as things progress, so see if you can catch those as they happen.

Other than that, other things I feel worth mentioning are bits of lore from other mediums of the RWBY universe. Things like the novels and Grimm campaign are fair game for me to pull from with this story at any point, so I'd also keep an eye out for references to that.

Anyways, until next update folks!