Author's Note: Man can life get in the way, left to go back to my own place (which is almost in another state by the way) and have been really lazy and not working so much on this and yet not wanting to do some half-assed chapter. I should be able to update regularly as I get back into it but my brother gave me a ton of ideas for stories that I can't help but writing some basic plot/plans and ideas for them, but don't worry about me starting another story any time soon or just dropping TLR, that ain't happening.
I'm going to be working on more perspectives in the story, to add more diversity, so more to work on...
I'd say why I like punishing myself by pushing my ability to write, but I honestly don't know.
Feel free to point out any grammar mistakes I might have missed.
A Few Weeks Later...
Waking up, Ruby yawns before slipping of her bed and landing without making any sound. Getting dressed and grabbing Crescent Rose, she walks out her team dorm and starts heading to Miss Goodwitch's fighting arena, even though the deputy is probably working elsewhere. Walking inside, Ruby spots Qrow standing in the centre of the arena, his weapon extended into its own scythe form. Stopping a couple metres away from her teacher, Ruby draws Crescent Rose, and with a quick spin of her weapon, she adopts a combat stance. A minute passes as the two scythe wielders stand ready, waiting for the other to initiate the fight.
Ruby, aided by her semblance, starts running at Qrow at a blinding speed, her scythe behind her as she fires it for added acceleration. As Ruby comes within striking distance, she ducks and swings Crescent Rose in a rising arc, which Qrow steps away from, his own weapon swinging at her left side. Pushing herself off the ground to dodge the swing, Ruby flips over Qrow, swinging her weapon at his head which he is forced to block. Landing with one leg stretched out, Ruby swings her weapon's blade at Qrow, who blocks her, but Ruby uses this opportunity to spin around and attack his open side, but the seasoned huntsman anticipates this and swifty blocks the attempted attack. Ruby quickly collapses her baby and blocks Qrow retaliatory strike and is pushed back a few metres. Firing at Qrow rapidly, Ruby begins circling him while firing at him until her clip runs out. Qrow smirks at her, before the part the connects blade to shaft protrudes two cylinders, which begin firing out shotgun pellets mixed with some Blast Dust. Thankfully, the amount isn't capable of destroying the environment and the two don't have to risk the wrath of Goodwitch. Firing her gun at the floor, Ruby launches herself upwards and fires again, launching herself at Qrow, who is forced to dodge since her momentum combined with the dangerous force called gravity could damage his weapon or ruin his aura. Qrow leaps back, and fires at Ruby, who is unable to dodge the spread, is forced to block as much as she can with Crescent Rose. Gauging her aura to be around 57%, Ruby runs at Qrow with her semblance, sliding pass his gunfire until she is able to attack him.
Swing her scythe around, Ruby starts by swing her scythe horizontally, as if using a scythe how it's supposed to be used. Qrow blocks this, his scythe quickly shifting into its sword form for better protection, Ruby fires her gun, attempting to break through his defence with brute force. She manages to make Qrow buckle slightly under the blow but is unable to react as her teacher swiftly pushes her off and begins his own offensive. Qrow slashes at her rapidly as Ruby desperately tries to avoid being hit. Firing a round at Qrow, who didn't expect this and is forced to tank the hit with his Aura, Ruby manages to scramble away from Qrow. Ruby knew she'd have no chance if that Qrow got the offensive advantage, she was done for. Swinging her weapon behind her, Ruby fires and flies past Qrow, slashing at Qrow, who blocks easily, but Crescent Rose's blade is shifted, so that it forms a more spear-like shape with a curved blade. Using her semblance to stop herself, Ruby fires behind herself again and repeats this cycle a few times, constantly changing her direction to keep her teacher from homing in on her, she manages to hit the huntsman a few times, but much to her annoyance, his aura seems to be very much intact. Stopping before Qrow can find a way to counter her, Ruby looks at the Branwen, who has a somewhat impressed look on his face. Ruby can't help but smile at him, glad she has impressed him in some way.
Qrow however, suddenly runs at her, faster than Ruby can react, and she is sent flying into one of the dust barriers around the arena. Landing on the ground with a thunk, Ruby looks at her scroll and sees her aura is at a measly 19%. Ruby groans mentally, how could she have forgotten one of the most important rules of fighting?! Neo would have been disappointed with her failing, the mute being a harsh teacher. All the hero mentality this place has must be getting to her. Ruby struggles to her feet and yells out to her teacher, "I surrender!"
Qrow can't help but be a little disappointed that she didn't try a last-ditch effort, but he is glad that she isn't like most people her age, and knows when it's better to surrender. She'll probably live longer than most of them. Walking over to his student, Qrow looks at her before pulling out his scroll. "New record, you lasted a minute longer than last time. You're getting better, but you shouldn't have let your guard down simply because you did something I found impressive." Qrow says to Ruby, who can't help but sigh. Girl really seemed to want to beat him, even though he was a seasoned huntsman that had hunted all kinds of Grimm, criminals and members of Salem's Faction and lived to tell about it. "You probably won't be able to beat me while you're learning here at Beacon," Qrow says to Ruby, who nods in reluctant acceptance, "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your hardest to win. For all I know, you could beat me next lesson we have, but even if that happens, you'll have to keep trying since this is the only way I can train you better. You have the skill, natural talent and ability to be a great scythe wielder, all you need is practise and pointers on how to improve, and I find that doing that in a dual is the best way to get it understood." Qrow finishes his little speech to Ruby, who does seem to be pleased with his honest praise.
"Alright Mr Branwen, I understand." Ruby says to Qrow, who can't help but sigh at her insistence to not call him by his name. "Do you mind if I leave sir?" Ruby asks.
Qrow looks at his student before saying, "Actually, I was wondering if I could know a little bit more about you?" Ruby looks at him with an inquisitive, almost suspicious look on her face. "I just would like to know more about who I am spending my mornings training." Qrow says to Ruby, who's face lightens up slightly.
"Well...Ok then, what would you like to know?" Ruby agrees.
Some time passes as Qrow asks Ruby some questions about her, such where she was from and if she had any close family. Ruby manages to come up with elaborate lies that are lined with some truth, having been taught by her dad that some truth can the difference between a lie working or falling apart, but Qrow doesn't seem to hint onto her, so Ruby lies what she has to but tells some useless truths to him.
"So, you grew up in Vale on the streets with your adoptive sister? Hmph, I got a good idea about how that can be." Qrow says to Ruby, who looks at him somewhat curious for details about her teacher's upbringing in the tribe. "I was raised in a tribe with my sister, Raven. We spent some time away from them as per the tribe's custom. We got used to being alone in a big city." Qrow explains to Ruby, but to her disappointment, he doesn't elaborate further. Looking at the time, Ruby asks, "Sir? It's almost 6:30, can I go back to my dorm now?"
Qrow nods, granting her request. "Sorry about taking your time kiddo, but I figure it will be good to get to know each other while I'm training you." Qrow says to Ruby, who nods in understanding. Leaving the arena and heading back to her dorm, Ruby notices as she starts walking down the corridor, that Jaune is outside, his head on the wall next to his own dorm's door. Walking up behind him, Ruby taps his shoulder, giving him a jump. "Good morning Jaune, what are you doing up so early?" Ruby says to her friend, curious to for a reason, though she has a clue as to why.
"Oh, hey Ruby...just, regretting my life choices right now..." Jaune says to Ruby rather anticlimactically. Ruby looks at him, her eyebrow raised. It's clear that he has been doing something rather physical. Ruby sighs when the dots connect, and she realises that Cardin has gotten him to do something again, Ruby noticed this started happening recently, and that Jaune has been spending more time with CRDL than his own team. This had lead Ruby to investigate the problem, Jaune is her friend after all, which turned out that Cardin had some kind of leverage over Jaune and was forcing him to do his school work and other menial tasks. While the kind and caring part of Ruby wants nothing less to help Jaune and beat up CRDL, the experienced criminal parts holds her back. Ruby knows that Jaune has to do something himself to handle his issue alone, if he wanted if situation to improve for the better.
Sighing to herself, Ruby looks at Jaune with a stern look, "Jaune, I know what is going on between you can Cardin." Jaune looks at her, looking like he was about to panic. "But you can just let him step over you and control your life." Ruby notices Jaune looking at her sadly.
"I can't, he knows something very important about me, and I'll be in a world of trouble if anyone else finds out." Jaune replies sadly. Ruby looks at him, thinking about what he said...
"What exactly is it then? You can trust me, I'm your friend." Ruby says in an attempt to get him to speak. Jaune looks at her, clearly not wanting to say, something unusual for someone like Jaune, who was a pretty open guy. "Jaune, I promise, I won't tell anyone at all, can you please tell me?" Jaune can only sigh, surrendering to his friend's request finally.
"Remember when Professor Oobleck had me and Cardin stay in after our lesson on Fort Castle? Well... after Oobleck dismissed us, Pyrrha had waited outside for me. She decided to take me up to the roof and she wanted to train with me and help me become a better fighter, but I took it the wrong way and I told her..." Jaune trails off, making Ruby think he said something stupid to Pyrrha. Ruby was about to ask him when he whispered to himself, "I told her how I cheated my way into Beacon with some fake transcripts I bought. Cardin heard me from outside his window after Pyrrha left."
Ruby can't help but be impressed that Jaune, of all people, cheated his way into Beacon. It certainly explained his terrible combat skills. Was Miss Goodwitch really that overworked when processing his request? Ruby looks at Jaune, who quickly says, "You can't tell anyone, please?"
"Of course, I won't Jaune, your my friend." Ruby says reassuringly. Ruby gives Jaune a hug and looks at him. "Jaune, I grew up in a dangerous place, and I can tell you now you need to do something to stop him without him telling any staff." Jaune looks dubious at what Ruby says, clearly not sure about how to handle what she is asking of him. "You'll know what you need to do when you need to do it." Ruby says to Jaune rather cryptically.
Ruby walks into her dorm, and wave goodbye to Jaune, leaving the Leader of JNPR to his thoughts.
It had been a week since Jaune had been told that he should fight back, and recently? Jaune really started to think about how to do so, except unlike Ruby, he wasn't exactly the bravest of people. Jaune sighed at his hopeless situation as he carried a box of Rapier Wasps (Which really didn't want to be caught, much to Jaune's pain and frustration) to CRDL's dorm. Knocking on the door, Russel opened the door for him and let him in. Russel wasn't as bad as Cardin, on the contrary, he was rather nice when not with his team. However, the whole team CRDL was in, which meant no chance for him to just put the wasps somewhere and leave.
"Hey there Jauney Boy, you got my wasps for me, good job." Cardin says to Jaune sarcastically, "You can go now, I don't need you to do anything else for now." Jaune waited until he was out of their dorm before sighing with relief. Walking back to his own dorm, Jaune stops briefly, and rests his head against the wall next to JNPR's dorm. He wonders to himself, why? Why did he cheat into Beacon? Was it to prove to himself he was something greater then what he was? Or to honour his family, his father being a retired huntsman himself? Jaune shook his head and grabbed his scroll and opened the door. His team was already asleep, it was well past 10:00 pm, and Jaune didn't even bother getting changed into his onesie, too tired and down on himself to be bothered, and flopped down on his mattress.
Jaune laid on his bed for some time, thinking how he could get himself out of this conundrum. He had taken Ruby seriously, but he just couldn't even figure out a to stop Cardin without getting exposed. Not to mention, a lot of his plans that COULD work, Jaune just can't muster the courage to enact. Sighing one final time, Jaune yawns and closes his eyes, letting sleep take him.
Leading the class was Miss Goodwitch, who was taking her first-year class to the school's privately owned bullheads. She sorted them into three of the transports, the pilots already scheduled for their trip to forest known as Forever Fall. Ruby had noticed that when Miss Goodwitch had informed the class of the trip, Blake had an expression that was not a nonchalant one. She seemed...almost shocked, as if she had been there before for something. Ruby looked down at her scroll, reading the info her dad sent her earlier about her other two teammates. Unfortunately, most the info on Weiss that Ruby didn't know was purely about her relations with her family. The intel on Blake was also limited, after all, it wasn't unusual for Faunus to be born on Menagerie but leave when they were older. Perhaps Blake had travelled to Forever Fall and had ran into something or someone unsavoury?
Shaking her head slightly to rid herself of her theorising, Ruby looks over to see what her team is doing. Weiss wasn't doing much, merely sitting down and waiting, Blake was casually reading a book (which Ruby swears she didn't notice earlier) and Yang appears to have dozed off. Ruby looks down at her scroll, looking at a text from her dad, who just seemed like he wanted to know how she was. Ruby smiled slightly, even though she was infiltrating probably the most dangerous place in Vale and had the express attention of the Headmaster and one of the Branwen twins, Roman still acted like she was on any old easy job. Ruby worked a simple reply, letting the criminal mastermind know she was fine and doing well. Switching her scroll off, knowing he will likely be unable to reply until later that afternoon. Ruby cracks her neck slightly, getting rid of the stiff feeling on the back of her neck.
Sometime passes when the bullhead RWBY shares with JNPR starts to slow and begins to descend. The airship lands and the teams make their way out, the other teams also leaving their own bullheads, while Miss Goddwitch instructs the group to follow her. Ruby sighs in slight disappointment when she notices Jaune carrying CRDL's jars.
As they walk down a dirt trail Miss Goodwitch starts speaking, "Yes, the forest of Forever Fall is a beautiful place, but we are here to collect samples from the trees deeper inside the forest for Professor Peach. I am here to make sure none of you die while doing so." Ruby raises her eyebrow at Miss Goodwitch. Who the hell, was Professor Peaches?! She had extensive dossiers on the Beacon Staff, save the headmaster (who was quite the enigma), and there was no Professor Peaches working here! However, Ruby didn't question her combat teacher, knowing that she'd likely get detentions or worse.
The class had split up, with most teams going off to hang out and get their required amount of sap. There were a few teams that went as a group, like RWBY and JNPR. Ruby was disappointed as she watched Cardin take Jaune, likely to make him do their work for them. She could see the sad looks on the other members of their team, Pyrrha seeming to a mixed of sadness and restrained fury. While Ruby's own team didn't mind, Ruby couldn't help it but be disappointed that Jaune still let Cardin use him. Ruby looked away as they had walked off to a small grove of trees.
A few minutes later, Ruby and her team had finished gathering the needed sap (Ruby was still suspicious of why exactly they needed to get all this sap) and were relaxing along with Pyrrha, who had also just finished. Pyrrha's teammates would have been finished too, but Nora kept drinking the sap and making Ren refill it, much to his little annoyance. Ruby had been here before, training against the local grimm with Neo, but she didn't know that people used the sap for...something and it was a little surprised that they never encountered anyone. Looking around her surrounds as a habit, Ruby noticed Jaune walking in the direction of where CRDL were, carrying six jars filled with sap.
Wait...six?
Ruby watched Jaune out of the corner of her eye as he wandered down a small hill to his tormentor. Looking over at her friends, they were all have a conversation except for Blake, who was reading her book. Ruby politely taps Blake on the shoulder.
"Heeey, I need to go for a minute, just in case anyone asks." Ruby says to Blake, who merely nods in response. Getting up, Ruby walks off some distance, before climbing a tree and doubling back. Ruby leaps from tree to tree, making as little noise as possible, until she comes into sight of Jaune and CRDL, who are laying prone on the hill and looking down at her team and Jaune's. She can't hear what is being said, but Ruby hazards a guess as Cardin points at Pyrrha, who is filling Nora's jar since Nora keeps drink hers. Pulling out Crescent Rose, Ruby waits to see what happens.
Jaune looked shocked and sure as hell was shocked. Cardin had just asked him to throw sap at Pyrrha so those wasps would attack her! Jaune had never been more conflicted, Pyrrha was nice and a great teammate, but he couldn't exactly afford to revealed by Cardin.
Raising the jar, Jaune was about to throw when Ruby's words went through his head. You'll know what you need to do when you need to do it. Resigning himself to whatever fate he was going to suffer, Jaune lowered his arm. "No."Jaune says.
Cardin looks at him, clearly a little surprised. "What did you just say?" the bully says, his tone clearly saying for him to reconsider, but Jaune, despite wanting to, doesn't and says to his tormentor.
"I said, NO!" and throws the jar which hits Cardin square in the chest. It took a second to realise just what he had done.
"Now you've done it." Cardin says dangerously, to which chuckles nervously as Sky and Dove grab him by his shoulders.
Ruby watches as the jar shatters on Cardin, a happy smile on her face as she watches her friend finally resist and fight back.
Although, this probably wasn't the best time for him, Ruby thinks to herself as Dove and Sky grab Jaune. While Ruby can't exactly hear what is being said, she can watch as Cardin likely threatens Jaune, punching him in the stomach, knocking Jaune to the ground. Cardin picks him up and punches him again, right in the cheek, again knocking the leader of JNPR to the ground. Cardin picks him up once more, to which he says something to Jaune, who seems to reply with something defiant. Ruby aims Crescent Rose at Cardin, her bullet to disable him if he continues, however as Cardin growls at him and goes to punch him, a blinding white light shines from Jaune, blinding everyone, including Ruby.
Once she regains her eyesight back, Ruby notices that Jaune has somehow instantly healed himself, and Cardin is holding his wrist in pain. Sky kicks Jaune in the back, and Cardin, his Aura making his wrist less painful, seems about to gang up on Jaune.
Ruby jumps out of the tree as the Ursa behind them bellows in anger and smells the sap on Cardin.
Ruby is split between saving Cardin and letting the Ursa maul him for having the grimm's snack on his armour. The other members of CRDL run, but Cardin is mauled aside before he can turn. The grimm looks at Jaune briefly, before going after Cardin. The school bully tried to draw his mace, but the Ursa knocked it out of his hands, and it landed in front of Jaune, who looked like he might just leave Cardin to his fate. In Ruby's opinion, that would be ideal, the threat to his time at Beacon is gone, he doesn't have to get blackmailed and a racist that barely contributed wouldn't be missed, but Ruby knew Jaune. She knew he would try and help him, even if Cardin wouldn't have himself.
Ruby watched as Weiss and Pyrrha appeared, Ruby moved over to them. Jaune had by this point jumped in front of Cardin, saving his life as the Ursa was about to end Cardin's. Blocking the paw with his shield, Jaune pushed it off him and swung his sword in an arc, slicing into the grimm's hide. Ruby looked at Weiss, who was about to attack, and shook her head. Weiss looked at her leader, before putting her weapon away. Jaune dodged a strike from the Ursa, and jumped over another impressively, before being smacked down mid-air and landing next to Cardin. He quickly got back up, and charged, but was knocked aside. Ruby saw him check his Aura, which had to be low after hits like that. Ruby watched as he moved a bit slower at the Ursa, which was about to swing again, but Pyrrha raised her hand, and Jaune's shield started moving up, in perfect position to deflect the paw, and give Jaune an opening to decapitate it. Which he managed to do. Ruby was thoroughly impressed he took the opening.
"How did you do that?" Weiss said to Pyrrha, sounding a little bit amazed. Pyrrha was about to say when Ruby cut her off.
"Polarity, you can control magnetic forces, and control metal by extension. It's also your semblance." Ruby says to which Pyrrha nods in confirmation. Pyrrha started walking off, Ruby and Weiss catching on to what she was suggesting. Ruby waited for a moment, wanting to see how this played out.
Jaune walked over to Cardin, who looked both impressed and ashamed of himself. Jaune offered a hand to his ex-tormentor, who took it and Jaune pulled him up.
"Holy shit Jaune." Cardin says to Jaune, shocked that he protected him and even killed that massive Ursa. Jaune pulled Cardin up to him, looking him in the eye.
"Never mess with my team...my friends, ever again." Jaune says in a low voice that Cardin can only nod in confirmation. Jaune turns around and starts walking away, unaware that Ruby was behind a nearby tree, and heard everything that time.
When Miss Goodwitch questioned the two students, it turns out that Cardin tripped over his jar and got it on his armour, and an Ursa attacked them. Jaune noticed and had moved to save his classmate.
Their teacher actually didn't think there was anything else to it. They left shortly afterwards and had made their way back to Beacon Academy. Some of the support staff had taking the jars of sap once they had arrived, and while Ruby doubted that it had a malicious intent, she wanted to know why they needed so much sap. RWBY and JNPR made their way to their dorms to have the afternoon off. Ruby watched as her team went about their business, Weiss studying, Blake reading and Yang playing on her scroll. Ruby had her headphones on as she had a text-voice chat with her dad.
'Hi dad, how are you?' Ruby typed, to which her dad shrug.
"I'm fine, Cinder still being a pain. How's your training with the big bad Qrow going?" Roman replied to his daughter, his joking tone making her smile.
'Good, he's extremely good at fighting, also I haven't been able to find out any info on sis' Ruby typed, to which her dad merely shrugs again.
"Keep at it, don't push it too much though, you know what can happen." he says to Ruby, "Well, nice chatting with you, but daddy has got some work to do, I send Neo text time to bring you over here."
'Bye dad' Ruby types, before she ends the call. She quickly checks to see if her anonymity program she had installed prior to leaving to Beacon worked as it was meant to, and thankfully it had. Getting up, Ruby asks her team, "Anyone want some snacks from the cafeteria? I'm going to get some." Weiss politely decline, Blake asks for some fruit and Yang requests several packets of junk food. As Ruby makes her way there, she notices Pyrrha walking up to the roof. Sneaking behind her, she watches as the champion fighter walks up to Jaune, who had been up there alone apparently. Ruby smirks and leaves them to their own privacy, while giggling at how Jaune would likely mess up somehow in that rather romantic setting. Walking away from the roof exit, Ruby puts on her headphones and uses her semblance to run down and get her team some snacks.
Later that evening, Ruby was walking down from the CCT tower, having just finished discreetly putting the last of her surveillance cameras up when she saw Qrow, Ozpin and Miss Goodwitch head inside the elevator. Sitting down on a bench outside, Ruby turned her scroll on to see where they were going. Ruby was surprised when she saw the headmaster insert a special key into a little compartment and the elevator headed down. As she watches from her microscopic camera, Ruby was surprised when it suddenly cut out, even though it seemed to be working fine. Frowning at this development, Ruby waited for them to send the elevator back up and for her camera to turn on. Once it was back on the main floor, Ruby quickly ran in with her semblance and pocketed the camera. Walking away with little reason to seem suspicious to the unsuspecting, Ruby's face was in deep thought. The girl walked back to her dorm, to which her team though she had been on another casual walk, like they did when she first lied to them about why she was out.
Ruby was lying in bed, her mind unable to fathom what led Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon, to have anti-surveillance tech installed for something under the school. Waiting for everyone to finish getting ready for bed before herself, Ruby quickly texted Roman about this strange abnormality about the school, but the criminal had no idea either. With both daughter and father in the dark, Ruby decides leave this for now, making a note on her scroll to look into at a later date.
Oz had tried to tell him not to bother with the anti-surveillance hardware, but he had installed it anyway. It payed to be overly safe then unsecured.
General Ironwood frowned as he's personal scroll beeped and informed him that someone had tried to place surveillance gear in the Vault. The Atlesian General picked up his scroll and started to organising an early trip to Beacon with some of his officers.
It had been too long since he had visited his old friend.
Shorter chapter this time, want to leave episodes 15 and 16 to another chapter, seeing how much I can do on them alone, that would be way too much for me to do in one chapter.
And whenever I am writing Ruby, I tend to think of her like Kasumi for Mass Effect, especially with her Loyalty gear. I should stop playing Mass Effect for a bit...
The Finale of Volume 5 was pretty good, though I don't really get the feels from anything. I'm heartless like that...
Any advice or helpful criticism is always appreciated, AD