A few days later, Ruby and her team were making their way across Beacon's campus after they had left their last class for the week just a few minutes ago. Because Ruby wanted to check in on her pack, they were making their way towards the path down to Forever Fall forest. The students around them were eyeing Ruby carefully, some radiating fear, others hatred, but none actually tried to approach her, remembering the heavy punishments Ozpin had promised to those who let their actions be directed by the knowledge what the half Grimm actually was.
When the four girls were crossing the courtyard where the headmaster had held the press conference to reveal Ruby's secret to the public, the redheads mind wandered back to the different reaction she had been met with afterwards. While most students she had befriended beforehand were angry that she had kept her true nature from them, but were trying their best to treat her like they always had nonetheless.
What had surprised Ruby was how the members of the Vale police that had been invited as additional security, among them officer Viridian, had turned on them and would more than likely have tried to take her in there and then on charges of endangering the public by leading grimm into the City, as well as for all the times she gave a false testimony claiming to be a Faunus, if it hadn't been for Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch standing in their way, and the Headmaster pointing out that Beacon was technically not under the police's purview as it was not part of the City of Vale. Even so they promised to take her in the next time she would set foot in the city, 'for the public's safety'.
The most surprising Reaction to the revelation though was the call she had received from Tukson the day after.
Ruby was lying on her bed, still saddened by how badly everything had went. Even her friends were secretly afraid of her now, although they did not try to show it, with only very limited success seeing as she could literally taste it radiating from them. When her scroll began to ring she quickly picked up, and asked. "Hello, who is this?"
"Ah Hello Ruby, it's Tukson." The calling Faunus replied before he continued, his voice seemingly in a sympathetic tone. "I just read what happened yesterday in the Newspaper, and wanted to offer to either have Blake pick up your orders or send them to you in Beacon as it seems you won't be able to come get them yourself for a while."
Hearing this seemingly genuine offer of help, Ruby began to shed a few tears as she replied.
"Tha- thank you, but why would you do that, don't you think I am a monster."
"No, not only did you save my life, but if I were to turn my back on you, just because you have a few more animal-like traits, I would be no better than the human racist I worked against when I was still with the White Fang."
With this proclamation, Ruby lost the grip on her scroll, which fell onto her mattress, as she began to cry more tears of joy, until she remembered that Tukson had not ended the call, and picked up her scroll again.
"You can't imagine how much that means to me Tukson, everyone else who learned what I am yesterday is now afraid of me. And it would be awesome if you could have my orders sent to Beacon from now on."
"Well then take care of yourself and don't worry I am sure your friends will come around."
The young half Grimm was torn from her thoughts as the sound of metal parts sliding against each other and a set of approaching stepps reached her canine ears. Noting that both set of noises were coming from her right and rapidly getting closer, she raised her right arm to intercept an incoming blow with its bone spikes. As she turned to look, Ruby hastened her movements, barely managing to block the sword closing in on her. Noticing the detailing identifying it as her uncles weapon, the wolf tailed redhead grabbed Crescent Rose with ehr free hand as she used her Semblance to disengage and get some space and time to fully deploy her weapon. As the petals created by her Semblance were obscuring her vision, Ruby prepared to defend against the attack her uncle was more than likely already starting.
But when the petals had scattered enough for her to see Qrow again, she was more than surprised to see him tackled to the ground by a pair of white and blue Beowolves. Stepping closer her claws clacked on the stone beneath her as she barked furiously at the strange Grimm.
"[He's my prey let him go]" But even after repeating a few times more, they were not listening to her, as if they couldn't even understand her, which prompted Ruby to take a look around. First she took note of ehr teammates standing close by. While Yang was used to uncle Qrow's 'greeting by sparring' and thus had her arms crossed before her, slightly disappointed that the show had been interrupted, Blake was obviously still trying to understand what was going on. Weiss on the other hand was staring at something behind Ruby with a very pleased expression, prompting the pawed girl to turn around.
"My- miss Rose, are you alright?" Winter Schnee asked the half Grimm as she finished turning around, her saber held forward as if to direct the strange Grimm, a white Glyph hanging in the air behind her. "Did that drunkard injure you before I was able to intervene?"
As the words reached Ruby's ears, realization spread over the lower half of her face.
"Wait are those your Beowolves pinning down my Uncle?" the girl in the red cloak asked while she lowered her scythe for the moment.
While Winter was a tad confused by how the redhead had replied to her assistance, a pair of howls escaped the white Beowolves as Qrow finally managed to free himself of them. severing each head with a quick swing of his head.
"Were her Beowolves." He corrected his niece as he stood up fully. "Now come here and give your uncle a hug. That stuck up Atlesian sell out ruined my mood."
As she moved over, Ruby let out an annoyed growl before answering to the Huntsman. "Aw but I was looking forward to showing you how much more butt I can kick now." But despite her complaints, she folded her scythe back up in its most compact form and returned it to just above her tail before giving her uncle a Hug, careful not to tear his grey shirt with her claws.
"I am sorry that I miss judged this situation yo- team leader Rose, is there anything I can do to make up for this?" Winter asked the young redhead as she approached the small family reunion, sheathing her weapon and, to the surprise to everyone present, bowing before them.
"Hm, do you have any good ideas Uncle Qrow?" Ruby asked her uncle, unsure how to respond to the white haired woman's question.
"I could think of one thing." The Huntsman said loudly before he whispered into the half Grimm's canine ear. Nodding along to her uncle's explanation, Ruby let out a few short giggles, before she turned to look at the Atlesian specialist and spoke up, doing her best to keep from laughing any more and barely succeeding.
"Well as you disturbed our contest of physical prowess." The redhead began, doing her best to sound like Weiss when she was on one of her rants about proper etiquette or something similar, while a grin began to spread over what little of her face was clearly visible. "I would like for you to participate in a contest of Alcohol tolerance against Qrow Branwen."
Hearing those words, Yang began to snicker, while everyone else was only getting confused over the strange request. "Which shall be witnessed by the entirety of my team."
Once she had finished, Qrow scratched her behind the ears, as Winter stood straight again, her face radiating utter confusion as she spoke again.
"Of course my- miss Rose," An answer that seemed to surprise everyone even more than the suggestion of the drinking contest itself. The first to recover from the shock and actually speak was Weiss, who was moving closer to her sibling.
"Sister, why would you agree to such a thing so readily?" The white haired student asked, waving a hand towards the half Grimm and her uncle, both of whom were slowly starting to grin even brighter.
"I did just attack a member of your team leader's family, without any information as to what was happening. And even so, humiliating him in a contest of his choice is definitely better than what the General would have me do as punishment should he learn of this incident." She replied to her sister after a short moment before she turned towards the Huntsman and continued. "As part of the agreement was to let these students witness our drinking contest, would it be acceptable if we were to hold it aboard my airship?"
After taking a short breath to keep himself from laughing, Qrow stepped closer to Winter as he replied.
"Sounds like a good idea, I don't want to find out what Glynda would do to us if we were to drink before students on Campus." Pulling out his flask and giving it a short shake, only to find out it was empty, Qrow continued. "Now if you girls would excuse me, I need to go buy some spirits."
"Later Uncle Qrow!" Ruby shouted excitedly as the Huntsman turned to walk away, waving to his nieces.
"Specialist Schnee would you please wake up?" Penny said as she shook Winter once more, careful not to hit her own head on the barrels of the cannon she had found the specialist lying next to. Luckily this time the woman's eyes fluttered open, to the great relief of the android standing next to her.
"Ugh, could it wait just a few more minutes?" The specialist replied, bringing a hand up to her pounding skull to shield her eyes from the sunlight, "and could someone turn down all that excited cheering?"
"But Specialist Schnee, you need to get to the opening ceremony of the Vytal Tournament, you are supposed to represent Atlas." The orange haired girl at her side replied as she pulled a duffle bag closer before continuing. "As your squire I took the liberty to prepare an outfit for you shortly after I noticed you were not inside your own quarters, after which I began to search for you."
"Wait how long do we have until the Ceremony starts?" Winter asked, surprised at the fact that Penny had found it necessary to start searching for her.
"It already has, but we have another fifteen minutes before the footage of the past Vytal tournaments finishes playing and Ozpin starts his welcome speech, which you need to be present for." The android informed her as she carefully removed the pieces of her superior's dress uniform form the bag next to her. without any more words, Penny helped Winter get dressed as quickly as possible and , barely ten minutes later the specialist had made her way behind the stage where Ozpin's speech would take place, slightly out of breath as she had used her glyphs to manage this. Peering through the curtain, Winter noticed Qrow Branwen standing next to his niece and her team at the front of the crowd, seemingly no worse for wear in contrast to herself.
When the time finally came for her to step on stage next to the teachers serving as chaperones for the student's from Haven and Shade, Winter noticed that her little sister was avoiding her gaze, an embarrassed pink tint on her cheeks.
'Just what did we end up doing last night?' The older Schnee asked herself, standing as still as she could manage while hiding the pain caused by the amplified sound of Ozpin's speech. When the speech finally came to its conclusion, she made her way back to her quarters as quickly as she could manage, trying to keep away from the crowds to reduce the amount of noise her hungover ears had to endure.
As she stepped in front of the door to her sleeping quarters, she saw a thick envelope attached to it with a strip of duct tape with her name written on it. Taking it inside with her, she summoned a tiny nevermore and plucked one of its razor sharp feathers to cut open the envelope. Dismissing her summon, she pulled the contents out of the envelope and was surprised to find a collection of printed out photos of what had happened after she had let Qrow and team RWBY aboard last night.
So thank you for reading, and if any of you have ideas for what those pictures show, just type it up and send it my way, I'll append it to the end of this chapter over the next week.