'Can this day get any worse?' Ruby thought to herself.
It had actually started pretty well as when the half Grimm's sister and dad had woken up, they had a nice breakfast, Taiyang frying bacon and scrambled eggs while Yang and Ruby made pancakes. The Rose-Xiao Long family took their time enjoying the meal, as it would be the last time they would sit down and eat together at home for a while.
After they finished their meal, Yang drove her motorcycle to the ferry, as she was going ahead to store it in a small Garage she had rented in Vale. Meanwhile, the rest of her family was loading the girl's bags into Taiyang's truck, when they had finished Ruby gave Zwei, her father's dog a last scratch to say goodbye and then they too were off towards Vale.
The three of them met at the airship dock where the girl's ride to Beacon was waiting. They quickly loaded the backs onto the airship before they said their farewells. soon the girls were on their way towards Beacon, while Taiyang made his way back towards Patch.
When their transport reached cruising altitude was when things began to go downhill. A tall, blonde Boy nearby didn't seem to take all that well to the flight and soon puked near the two girls. Proving that enhanced senses aren't always an advantage, Ruby's breakfast nearly joined the boy's, before she pinched her nose to block out the disgusting smell. Even so, she didn't dare to take more than shallow breaths.
When they arrived at beacon, Ruby quickly took a deep breath. enjoying the fact she could breathe freely again without fear of vomiting. As she was enjoying seeing all the different weapons the students were carrying, Yang told her that she would spend some time with a group of people she had claimed were friends from Signal, and quickly ran off, leaving her little sister alone so she could 'make some friends'.
And just now, her very first step after collecting herself had caused her to trip into another student's luggage.
"Watch where you are going!",the other student yelled at her before she had even the time to look up, let alone stand up.
"Do you even know what damage you could have caused? These suitcases contain pure, refined Dust."
"I'm really sorry!" Ruby replied, doing her best to not yell back at the other girl, her ears flattened on her head, while her tail began to twitch from sideways.
"Well I sure hope you are not an animal aft-", the white-haired girl in front of her began, but abruptly stopped after Ruby got up and looked at her. Before she could ask what was wrong now, the wolf-eared girl found herself encased in ice up to her shoulders with a rapier pointed at her face by the other student.
"Now you are either one of the best actors I have ever seen or just the clumsiest assassin the White Fang has in their ranks. If there ever is a next time, take off your mask, it makes it quite easy to identify you as one of those terrorists."
Ruby could taste the girl's anger and hatred that had suddenly flared up when she saw the half Grimm's face. To her surprise, the same feelings popped up from another person approaching from the side if her guess was correct. When she turned her head to see the approaching person, she was greeted with the sight of a girl with long black hair, held back by a bow, and yellow eyes, wearing a mostly black and white outfit. Until the girl reached them, Ruby was confused, as she could have sworn the girl's bow was twitching slightly, but when the girl arrived, her slightly cat-like scent betrayed her as a Faunus.
When Blake stepped out of the airship, she still struggled to believe she got accepted into Beacon despite her rather recent history in the White Fang. When it became painfully obvious to her that the organization stopped caring about innocent Bystanders, she decided to sever her ties with them and had applied to the Huntsman academy to use her skills to help people and maybe redeem herself in her own eyes for what she had done, mostly fueled by old rumors turned into propaganda. To her Dismay, the first thing she noticed was a poor wolf-eared girl covered up to her shoulders with ice, which made it nearly impossible to make anything out about the girl's appearance below her shoulders.
What she could see caused Blake to stop for a moment, as her face was covered in a Grimm-mask. She was about to turn around and leave the presumed terrorist to her fate, but when she realized that the mask was too well made for most members of the White Fang, and the few that would wear such a finely made mask weren't supposed to be near Vale based on what Intel she remembered. While she approached the girl, she noticed two things, first, her mask had the redlines forming Rose Petals, something she would have heard of if anyone in the Fang had on their mask. The second was Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company holding a sword into the poor Faunus' face.
'Of course, a Schnee would attack a Faunus', the bow wearing Faunus mused, and when she heard the accusations thrown at her fellow Faunus, she decided to intervene sooner rather than later. As she heard the human starting to talk again, the cat Faunus tried her best to keep her voice calm despite her fury.
"Before you continue miss Schnee may I point something out?", not waiting for a reply from the heiress Blake continued,
"The mask Miss-"
"Rose, Ruby Rose", the other Faunus supplied readily,
"Miss Rose is wearing does obviously look nothing like the simplified ones the White Fang is wearing. And even if she was wearing one of their masks, you would still be charged with assault based on what I saw of your interaction."
That little speech got the heiress attention, who was unsure of what to make of it, she soon lowered her weapon for now before she addressed the bow-wearing newcomer.
"But if she isn't a part of the White Fang, why would she wear such a mask?"
"Well it could be a trophy, or maybe she is from a tribe where it is tradition to wear them as Huntress or-"
"I wear it to hide some very embarrassing scars."
Hearing that answer reminded Blake of an old rumor from when the White Fang was still peacefully protesting, about a girl getting her face badly burned by a racist, but she let it go for now when she continued the conversation.
"Well if that is the case, I am sure both of you can agree that this was just a misunderstanding and that Miss Rose won't go to the police if you help free her of this ice."
The heiress replied to this suggestion by pulling out a small vial of burn Dust, which she used to melt the ice quickly. Immediately afterwards, she turned around and walked off, leaving her bags to be carried after her by a pair of servants.
At the same time, Blake saw the other Faunus clearly for the first time, 'That is a tail, she is the burned Faunus.' blake thought as she noticed the wolf-like tail swishing back and forth behind the other Faunus girl. Confused and unsure how to deal with this revelation, Blake wandered off, wondering why Ruby didn't even twitch when the ice around her had been sprinkled with the same Dust that gave her the scars she was hiding if the rumors were true.
As she finally arrived in the assembly hall with Jaune, Ruby was soon greeted by her sister, who had saved her a space in the center of the assembled students. Leaving her new friend behind, she moved next to her sister, who immediately started talking to her.
"Hey sis, hows your day been so far?"
"You mean after you ditched me? I was frozen in place."
"I didn't know you were that nervous about meeting new people."
"No, I got encased in ice by a girl claiming I was an assassin for the White Fang after I tripped over her suitcases."
Weiss Schnee had chosen exactly that moment to approach the wolf-eared girl to actually apologize for her actions.
"Hello Miss Rose, if you are willing to forgive my rash actions earlier, I will overlook that you crashed into my luggage and we all can pretend none of that had ever happened."
As Yang heard this attempt to apologize, she put one and one together and got ready to punch the girl in the white dress through the next best wall.
"Is that the girl that attacked you earlier Ruby?" She asked to confirm her suspicions.
The younger of the two sisters quickly interposed herself between Weiss and Yang and addressed her sister.
"Yes, but as she said, let's just forget that incident happened at all and start with a blank slate."
When Yang heard her sister's words, she returned to a more relaxed pose, holding out her hand for Weiss to shake instead.
"Well if you say so Rubes, Hi I'm Yang, Ruby's older sister."
Weiss gave the offered hand a firm shake while she replied.
"Weiss Schnee, nice to meet the both of you. Now if you two would excuse me, I think the speech is about to begin."
And with that, she left the two sisters, while the Headmaster appeared on stage.
Blake was leaning against the wall in the ballroom, a small candle holder standing next to her while she held one of the books she had brought with her to Beacon before her. She only pretended to read it as doing so caused most other students to leave her alone with her thoughts. Thus she was free to think about Ruby, a Faunus with both wolf ears and a tail while she hid her scared face behind a Grimm mask, just like the Burned Faunus was rumored to be. The girl with the red cloak had even admitted that she wore the mask to hide scars, but what confused her was that she hadn't shown a reaction to the burn Dust, so her scars might have a different origin after all.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed two girls approaching her. One was a rather well-endowed Blonde wearing a tank top along with some shorts. The other was her fellow Faunus she had just been thinking about, clad in a long-sleeved pajama, her hands covered with gloves, just as they had been when they first met. Before she could ask them what they wanted, the unknown girl spoke up.
"Hi, I wanted to thank you for standing up for my little sister earlier. I'm Yang and you already know Ruby, would you mind telling us your name as well?"
"No I don't, my name is Blake and I was actually thinking back to what happened back there just now. I know this is a very sensitive topic, but Ruby would you be willing to tell me how you got those scars you hide?"
"Well by now if told this story often enough so no I don't mind. About 5 years ago now I think, I attended one of the last peaceful protests the White Fang had organized, but then some racist decided my face would look better if he rubbed it with burn Dust, which he ignited as soon as he pulled his hand from my face. But why did you ask that?"
"So you are the Burned Faunus."
Ignoring the question posed by the younger Faunus, Blake spoke her now confirmed suspicion out loud, surprised that the rumor that inspired her to stay with the increasingly violent White Fang was actually true.
"I'm supposed to be the what now?" the youngest of the three asked, her head slightly tilted to the side in confusion.
"You see a few years ago there was a rumor making the rounds amongst the Faunus in my home village, about a little Wolf Faunus, which was claimed to have both animal ears and a tail, about ten years old who had gotten horribly burned by a racist after an otherwise peaceful protest for Faunus rights. It also said that from then on she wore a Grimm-like mask to hide her scars, which, according to some of those Faunus, influenced the White Fang's decision to wear Grimm masks to hide their identities while they fight for their cause."
While the younger sister seemed too shocked to respond, the mask making reading her mimic impossible, the older one asked Blake a rather obvious question.
"And how do you know what rumors the Faunus talk about?"
"Where I grew up, Faunus actually were in the majority, so most Rumors they talked about would soon reach the few humans living among them."
Yang did not seem quite satisfied with that answer, but before she could inquire further Ruby spoke up.
"Yang, would you mind if I talked to Blake alone for a moment?"
"Not really, I'll head back to our sleeping bag for now."
Yang told her sister as she turned to leave the other two girls. Before Blake could ask Ruby what she wanted to talk about, the younger girl leaned down towards her bow and spoke in a whisper her cat ears could barely hear through the bow's fabric.
"Why do you hide that you're a Faunus?"
Understanding how the other girl wanted to minimize the risk of being overheard, the Cat Faunus lowered her voice as well when she replied.
"Ruby you of all Faunus should know how horrible humans can be towards us. I just want to be left in peace."
"Well then I won't tell anyone about your secret, but I believe we are both here to help make the world a little brighter for everyone. If we hide what we are wouldn't that mean that most humans only notice the Faunus of the White Fang, not those like us who want to help people? After all, I don't want that all Faunus are seen as the big bad wolf. Anyway good night Blake."
With those words, the wolf-eared girl took her leave to rejoin her sister. Following her with her eyes, Blake saw the other girl sit down next to her Sister, where she pulled out a small paperback book and started to read. Blake thought hard about what the girl had said and fully agreed with her point of view, after all, if the Humans only see the White Fang on the news, they will never know about the Faunus like Ruby who wants to help everyone. Even so the cat Faunus was unwilling to reveal what she was, fearing recognition as a former member of the White Fang.
An hour later, most other students were already sleeping, so Blake laid down to sleep herself, but before she closed her eyes, she gave one last look towards the two sisters he had talked to earlier. While Yang was fast asleep, Ruby was still reading her book, probably without a problem thanks to their very good night vision she likely shared with Blake.
So As this story reached over 125 follows and 75 favourites, I decided to give al off you another chapter, probably the last ones out of schedule thopugh or I might just bleed my buffer dry, which could cause delays for the regular schedule each sunday.
As always thank you for reading, cromments and critique are welcome.
This chapter has been reedited witht eh help of MasterGamer132e