Day 17/30

"And I win again!"

Yang pumped her fist in the air as she celebrated her latest victory over Ruby in Final Combat GO! VII, grinning as her avatar ripped out the spine of her sister's. Ruby drooped her head low as Penny patted her back in comfort while Yang copied her avatar's mocking laughter on screen. The digital taunting was only made worse by being projected onto the large movie screen, his cackling emitting from the surround sound speakers mounted on the walls.

"Do not worry, Ruby!" Penny encouraged, "Perhaps next time you will be victorious!"

"I dunno about that, Penny," Yang said brashly, folding her arms, "I've been undefeated at this game ever since we started playing years ago! Ruby may have gotten the upper hand on me with pranks, but she'll never take my spot on the throne here."

"You are really good at this game! Could you perhaps show me how to play?"

Yang laughed heartily, feeling like she was queen of the video game world. "Well, I just don't teach anyone my skills. Ruby was my first pupil, but she could never reach my level of mastery."

"You never taught me how to combo until a few weeks ago!" Ruby whined, puffing out her cheeks.

"I like to push my students into the deep end and let them go from there."

"Sensational! I always wanted to learn how to swim!"

"Why hello there, children," a new voice called from behind. Roman strut down the aisle way towards the girls, Neo trailing close behind. "You hiding out down here playing games while everyone's workin' their asses off upstairs taking the decorations down?"

"Speak for yourself," Yang said, "You don't seem to be helping them very much."

Neo's snort told Roman he was had. "Whatever. I just don't get what you all see in these games. You don't gain anything from them. Hell, Neo spends my money on them and never gets anything out of it."

"You're a gamer Neo?" Ruby asked, "What do you play?"

Knowing she wouldn't answer for herself, Roman did it for her. "Whatever she can get her hands on, really. It's this stupid game on her phone right now, but she's got tons stashed away at our main hideout."

"Where's your hideout?"

"Nice try, Red."

"Aw, dang."

"Still, I must say I am impressed by how much of a natural she is at it," Roman said proudly, patting the little woman on the head (much to her disdain), "No matter what she plays, she wins."

Yang saw that declaration as an open challenge. "You don't say? Then I bet she wouldn't be afraid to take me one-on-one right here, right now?"

"Hmm, someone's feeling cocky today," Roman chuckled, "But Neo won't back away from such an easy victory, now would she?"

Rolling her eyes, Neo slipped her phone into her shirt and stretched out her fingers. Scooting in between Ruby and Yang, she took the former's controller and immediately selected her character. Yang scoffed at her choice, sensing her win already.

"You're choosing Saya?" Yang questioned, "A lightweight fighter like her won't stand a chance against my boy Bruticus the Brawler! I'll let you pick the arena, since you already have a handicap."

"Yang, your ego is leaking again…" Ruby muttered as Neo chose the Volcanic Despot stage. This only made Yang even more confident, as it was her personal favorite.

"Three lives each, Neo," Yang smiled, cracking her neck as the arena loaded, "I hope you're ready to get swept up and dumped right in the-

"RING OUT!"

"…Huh?" The blonde's jaw dropped as her character was knocked into a pit of lava. Neo smiled smugly at her, giving her a little wink to rub salt in the wound. Yang looked at a shocked Ruby and shook her head. "That… That was a fluke. I wasn't ready, that's all."

"Shouldn't a pro always be ready?" Roman chimed in.

"Be quiet you!" Yang locked eyes with Neo. "Now it's on."

As the words "FIGHT!" appeared on screen, Yang and Neo duked it out, their fingers blazing over the controllers. Penny watched carefully as Yang performed difficult combos, only for Neo to swiftly dodge her avatar's slower, more sluggish swings and retaliate with her own strikes. Soon enough, Yang's health bar dipped into the red and vanished as Neo's character kicked hers off the stage again.

"Neo wins again!" Penny shouted, much to Yang's annoyance.

"I've only ever seen Qrow beat her before!" Ruby followed, "But it wasn't this game! No one's ever beaten her at this one!"

"It's not over yet!" Yang growled, attacking Neo as the third round began. Her opponent read her sneak attack and dodged easily, letting Yang's character almost run off stage. When Yang went to reverse her direction, she was too slow to stop Neo from utilizing Saya's blitz combo and kick him right back into the lava, securing her victory.

"I don't believe it…!" Yang gasped, the controller falling from her hands as Roman applauded his partner.

"You… You beat her!" Ruby shouted, bowing down to Neo, "Teach me your secrets, oh wise mute one!"

"Ruby! You're supposed to be on my side!"

"Sorry sis, but she won fair and square."

This loss was not going to sit with Yang. She had been humiliated by Neo on the train during their first encounter, but she would be damned if she let short-stuff best her at video games! She pointed an angry finger at Neo, standing over the criminal. "You think you're soooo good at this, huh? Then I challenge you to a game-off! Whoever wins the next two out of three games gets bragging rights!"

"And the loser?" Roman questioned.

"The loser has to kiss someone else on the mouth of the other's choosing!"

"Oh! How lewd!" Penny covered her mouth; she would have blushed if she could. Ruby could only face palm; this wouldn't end well.

"Hmm… I like that!" Roman applauded, looking to his partner, "Sound good to you?"

Neo shrugged in agreement; even if she lost, she'd get a slight increase in fan donations if she was forced to kiss another girl. It was a win-win in any situation. Still, she didn't plan on losing to the overconfident bimbo anytime soon.

"Then let's do this!" Yang said, pounding her fists together, "The Queen of Games is gonna school you! So don't try and beat me, because that'd just be ir-regal!"

Silence.

"Get it? I replaced-

"Yes, we get it Yang."

If there was ever a competition fierce enough to rival Nora's Super-Ultimate-Crazy-Fun-Dodgeball-Weekend-Extravaganza, it was this one (though much less physical). The two gamers jumped right into first-person shooters, with Neo demonstrating her uncanny talent of no-scoping Yang at every opportunity. Out of a total of 10 rounds, Neo won with a lead of 6-4; she would probably have won two more if she hadn't gone a little easy on her seething opponent.

After Yang through her controller against the wall and shattered it, Ruby suggested they move onto handheld games to prevent the urge of tossing things around the house. The game of choice then was Chinpocketmon, a classic that Yang and Ruby had been playing for years together. For once, Yang had the advantage here; Neo was not well versed in the competitive aspect of the game as she was, and the blonde trumped her with her superior skills. Needless to say, Yang was ecstatic to have evened the score to 1-1 with that; her little victory dance only emphasized her glee more.

With that, Ruby suggested that the competitors end the contest with a bang (or a Yang, as a certain someone liked to call it). Running up to her room, Ruby pulled out a relic from a long-gone age, a fossil of gaming history, the favorite pastime of any mall rat…

"Ruby, why do you still have this?" Yang groaned as her sister opened up the colorful mat, Neo cringing at the sight of it, "Everyone stopped playing Dance Dance Rebellion like 10 years ago."

"I thought we might have fun with it here, so I packed it just in case," Ruby said, "Looks like my women's invocation wasn't wrong!"

"Doesn't she mean intuition?" Roman questioned. Yang just shook her head.

"Don't correct her. She'll forget about it in an hour or so."

Unlike the others, Penny was absolutely enthralled by this new game "Ruby, how does one play this game? It looks stupendous!"

"See these arrows?" Ruby said, "You have to step on them when they show up on screen. Whoever hits the arrows right more and gets the higher score wins."

"Oh! I would very much like to try!"

"Wait your turn, Eager McBeaver," Yang said, moving Penny out of the way as tied her hair up. She slipped off her brown jacket and placed it over Ruby's head, "I might be a bit rusty at this, but I'm gonna burn up the dance floor! Not literally, for once."

Using her foot to select her favorite tune, Yang kicked her legs in preparation for the onslaught of arrows coming her way. It had been a very long time since she had even played this, but this particular track was one she had mastered when she was younger.

"Hit it!"

The sound of a bass drop started off the dance, just as Yang had remembered. Moving her feet and swaying her hips, she hit all the arrows of the opening verse to the chorus, where she decided to show off and turn her back to the screen. She stuck her tongue out at an unimpressed Neo as Ruby applauded.

"Yeah! Shake it sis!"

Spinning back around, Yang knowingly bent down to whack Neo in the face with her hair, doing whatever she could to throw the little woman off. By the song's end, Yang hadn't even broken a sweat. She stepped off the mat, presenting it to her opponent.

"Wow," Torchwick chided, "For someone who hates this game you're pretty good at it."

"The Queen of Games has to master all forms, even outdated ones like this," Yang replied as Neo took off her boots and jacket, throwing it on the human coatrack known as Ruby, "Try and beat a score of 500, short stuff!"

Unknown to Yang, Neo had a very convenient past career before meeting up with Roman. As her song began, Neo breathed in and kept her body straight, performing the slightest curtsy before her feet fluttered over the mat. The grace and lightness of her movements astounded Yang, Ruby, and Penny, but Roman just sat back and enjoyed the woman as she revisited one of the few hobbies she truly loved. He rarely saw Neo move like this outside of fighting; she always implemented her limberness into combat, moving around like this to avoid harm. But now, she moved not for the sake of survival, but out of enjoyment.

It was in these little moments, these slight observations of her that Roman remembered money and schemes had no meaning if she wasn't by his side.

"And… curtain," Roman applauded a bowing Neo as her song ended.

"A tie?!" Yang shouted as she saw Neo's own 500 score, "You gotta be kidding me! How do we figure out the winner now?"

"I'm all out of games too," Ruby said, handing the dancers back their jackets, "Should we flip a coin?"

"Well, we do have a Penny right here."

"I'd very much prefer not to be flipped, please."

Ruby was having enough puns for one day. "Wow. You're on a roll today, aren't you sis?"

"Call 'em as I see 'em, angry or not."

"Relax, girls," Roman interjected, pulling a coin from his coat, "I'm here to save the day again, it seems."

"You've never saved the day. You've always just made it worse. Also, I call heads."

"…Good point."

Shrugging in defeat, Roman threw the coin up. All five of them watched it descend to the carpet, bouncing a few times before determining the winner of the game-off and who would receive the punishment…

Lying out on the front lawn under a tree, Blake yawned as she shut her novel and set it aside. With Adam in her room, she had gone outdoors to find a quiet place to read but encountered a much better distraction than her ex.

"I guess climbing trees is in your genetic code," Blake asked Sun, hanging by his tail from a branch above her, "Every time I'm outside, you're always in one."

"I dunno about that," the monkey said, "I just find it fun, that's all."

"You dork."

"Hey, look who's talking Miss 'All I Do Is Read All Day'!"

"What I do is different than- Oh, hey, Yang. What're you doing out here?"

"Last time. I promise."

"What do you mean by-

Before Blake could react, Yang bent down and pressed her lips to Blake's for a solid five seconds. Flailing her arms in surprise, Blake took a big breath when Yang finally let go and walked off without another word. The two Faunus exchanged a look of pure confusion over what just happened.

"Sun, I blame you for making Yang think she's a lesbian."

"Hey, maybe she always was one from the start?"

"…"

"That look is telling me to shut up, so I'm just going to do that now."