The ringing persisted and Ruby's eyes opened to see her scroll about to fall. Desperately she jumped, reaching out to grab the falling scroll and grab she did. She breathed a sigh of relief before noticing that she was practically in mid air and about to fall herself. She hit the ground with a thud which finally woke Yang who had been snoring. Weiss and Blake were already up and readying themselves for breakfast, they were dressed in more casual clothing as they had no classes today. "Come on, I want to get to the cafeteria before Nora." Weiss said with a hint of irritation creeping into her voice while adjusting the tiara in her hair. Ruby sensed Weiss's growing ire and hurriedly began to dress herself, Yang followed suit at a much more leisurely pace. Once they were both ready the four girls made their way down to the cafeteria for breakfast. The cafeteria was bustling with students grabbing food and chatting amongst themselves. At one of the central tables sat a pair of girls. One of the girls who wore quite a lot of pink had a high stack of pancakes in front of her and was devouring them without even coming up for air much to the visible concern of her companion .
The girl turned and with her mouth full called Ruby and the others over. They sat down next to the new group and the other girl who had crimson hair whose name was Pyrrha spoke somewhat apprehensively "Umm Nora I think you should slow down." The girl in pink; Nora barely took any notice and continued to eat. Realising that her words were falling on deaf ears she turned her attention to Ruby greeting them. Ruby replied in turn, the two groups exchanged pleasantries and they started to discuss their different plans for the day. A few minutes later there was another pair of arrivals, a pair of teenage boys one with blond hair and the other with dark hair, their arms laden with plates of food stacked high. "Ok we managed to get what ever was left, no bacon though Nora had already cleared it out." The lead boy said nearly dropping the plates as he placed them on the table, his companion delivered his without issue. "Ah Jaune, Ren thank you. I was just discussing with Ruby that perhaps we could all go out today together, as a group. would you perhaps be interested?" Pyrrha asked as she began to distribute the plates of food amongst herself and team RWBY who gratefully tucked into the warm breakfast foods. The blond of the two Jaune jumped on the question "Oh yeah definitely!" There was enthusiasm in his voice. Ruby was listening to them and her mind started to imagine all the things they could do together once they got to the city, maybe they could go to that weapons shop she had seen or maybe they could go to that ice cream place on Main Street. Her happy thoughts of a pleasant day however were rudely interrupted as her mind wandered back to the dream she had. The dream of the Velvet room, Igor and Julius and the ominous warnings of a game. The though sullied her mood and she stopped eating, the others were too busy talking or eating to notice save Yang who noticed her sister's sudden loss of energy.
Yang had noticed Ruby's odd behaviour from the previous day, it had worried her but she said nothing of it but this clear loss of her normal bubbly self was too weird. "Hey Rubes are you feeling ok?" Yang asked gently tapping her sister in the shoulder. The touch caused Ruby to jump in fright. She helped before turning to Yang "Oh s..sorry Yang, I was um thinking about stuff." She said half heartedly before starting to eat again. Yang didn't press her sister for answers, instead she returned to the conversation between Weiss and Pyrrha. The group continued to discuss various plans for the day, Blake was uninterested as usual throughout only chiming in when asked directly but to the others surprise Ruby shared this lack of enthusiasm. Eventually the two teams took leave of each other agreeing to meet in an hour to leave for the city. Weiss went to procure a time slot for them all on the next airship, Blake disappeared somewhere, Ruby and Yang however were still together walking through the halls of Beacon. Normally the two would be laughing and joking but today they were silent. Yang noticed Ruby see something before the caped girl suddenly excused her self and ran off. Yang couldn't even ask what she had seen before her sister was gone in a cloud of petals. Confused and growing in agitation Yang followed Ruby as best she could, after chasing her sister for ten minutes, even calling out to her but even still she failed to catch up to her. She sat down on a nearby window ledge and caught her breath, the window was closed so she leant back. She looked back at her reflection, saw her own smiling visage staring back at her and thought "I look good today." The thought improved her mood somewhat before it was sullied immediately by another "I wasn't smiling though." She barely had any to register the thought before a hand reached out from the now liquid like surface of the glass and pulled her in.
Ruby was walking with Yang when she saw something that caught her eye. Walking around the corner was Julius from that Velvet room place, she was sure of it. She rushed after him, not saying a word to Yang who was confused by Ruby's sudden exodus. Using her semblance she sped after him but he somehow managed to be ahead of her, rounding a corner. Eventually she saw him step into a classroom, there was no one around so she went to follow. She went to open the door but noticed that it was much different to how it normally was. Instead of the plain, door that would normally sit in the frame instead this was much more elaborate door, blue in colour with a butterfly design inlayed with gold. She opened the door and stepped through, finding herself in the room from her dream. She looked back to see the door was gone, now replaced with the soft couch from before. Two sets of noise greeted her,the first was a calming operatic melody that seemed to be playing from a nearby radio and the other was the voice of Igor. "Ah Ms. Rose how lovely of you to return to us so soon." She jumped at the sight of Igor and his nose but made sure to compose herself before greeting him and Julius in turn. "Ummm Hiya." Igor stared at her, a permanent grin n his face, Julius looked at her with a cold, uncaring stare. A moment passed before Igor spoke again "Ms. Rose the reason I have called you back is to educate you on the function of the Velvet room. Julius shall show you around if you would follow him." He motioned to the blue clad attendant who began to walk towards a large bookshelf before turning and motioning to Ruby to follow him. She did so and he took a large tome with a golden V on the front down from the shelf, "I am here to assist you with the compendium and with fusing your personas. This is the compendium." He said rather quickly as he showed her the tome. "Wait... time out. Fusing?" Ruby asked giving him a look of confusion. A look of thinly veiled agitation flashed across his face before regaining his composure "Yes, the Velvet room allows you to gain new power and Personas through a ritual known as fusion."
Interested at the thought of something new Ruby asked how fusion worked. Julius opened the tome flipping to a page near the centre. On it was an illustration of Holzfäller and what appeared to be a set of notes written about it. "The compendium remembers every Persona you gain, as such it will also remember different recipes for fusing. Sadly though we cannot give you an example today, due to you only having one persona in your possession." He said apologetically. "Oh... I see." Ruby said downcast now that she wouldn't get to see a fusion. The Velvet room attendant looked down at his watch and exclaimed "Ah Ms. Rose you must leave otherwise you'll be late for your engagement with your friends!" He hurriedly pushed Ruby towards the door ushering her out, apologising for his apparent rudeness at forcing a guest to leave. Thee was a flash of light as she walked through the door and she exited the velvet room.
A bit bewildered Ruby looked around and found herself back outside the classroom in Beacon. She spun around to look at the door but it had returned to normal. She looked down at her scroll and saw a series of messages from Weiss and the others asking where she was, realising she was late for the airship she rushed off in the hopes of not missing the airship. Thankfully she made it with only seconds to spare, the others were already on the airship save one noticeable absence. Her sister Yang was nowhere to be seen, all the others were there so it was odd. She asked the others but no one seemed to know, they had all tried calling and messaging her but had received no replies. In the end they concluded that she must be busy with something else so they left the issue be. A few minutes later the Airship left Beacon and started to make its way towards the city of Vale. They arrived a short while later and started to wander around the city visiting various stores and window shopping. As they were walking down main street Ruby felt a chill rundown her spine, it was the kind of feeling she would get when a Grimm was nearby but there was none around. Her eyes wandered and landed on a nearby storefront and for the briefest moment she though she could see Yang in the reflection the glass made. She blinked and did a double take and sure enough she could see her sister moving around in the reflection. None of the others seemed to notice so she excused herself from the group and made her way into the store, there were racks of clothes everywhere so she grabbed an armful and went into a unoccupied dressing room. There was a full body mirror that was large enough for Ruby to see herself fully, laying a hand on it the mirror ripples formed out from her hand and Ruby pushed through into that strange mirror world.