RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth, of which I am not a part of.
Okay, so I might've lied when I said this chapter would be Volume 2. I was most of the way through that chapter when this idea came across my mind. Time to see if it was worth it.
Also note that while this is MAINLY a Monochrome/Checkmate fanfic, that doesn't mean I don't want to develop other relationships and characters. In particular, I'd like to solve the whole Jaune/Weiss/Neptune ordeal AND the Black Sun stuff. I don't know if I'd call it sinking, but… well, again, people likely came to this fic for Weiss and Blake (and, well, that's why I made this fic in the first place!) Basically, I want to improve intra-team relationship rather than inter-team relations. I want to include a lot of the stuff from the show, but I also don't want to use TOO much, while still developing the storylines I want to. Anyhow…
This chapter is not actually based on an episode, but rather is supposed to be between Volume 1 and Volume 2. Non-canon Episode 3: All Together Now
At Ruby's request, her team assembled in the courtyard after lunch to use much of the time left in the semester's break to practice combo moves, which involved multiple teammates fighting together.
What Ruby hadn't told her teammates was that most of the practice time would be used for coming up with catchy names rather than actually practicing the moves. Weiss was particularly annoyed by this, though as she wasn't the team leader, she didn't have the authority to change Ruby's plans.
So far, they'd come up with the details and names for: 'Checkmate,' Weiss and Blake's attack pattern, 'Ladybug,' Ruby and Blake's attack and 'Bumblebee,' Blake and Yang's attack. With all of her moves already being named and laid out, Blake had stood off to the side, patiently waiting as the other three girls tried to think up viable names for their combinations, with the Faunus only intervening once to shoot down the blonde's suggestion of incorporating her motorbike into her and the brunette's move.
"But it's CALLED Bumblebee! Come on!"
"As… nice as that sounds," in all honestly, Blake hated the idea of throwing a LOUD motorcycle into their already dangerous move, "we need to have a move that can be used at ANY time. That includes when you don't have your bike with you."
"Awww…"
Her seemingly genius and spontaneous idea no longer applicable, Yang went back to work thinking up a name for her and Weiss's move. They were still trying to figure out how their two different styles could be used together and there was little obvious material to go off. She and Ruby had managed to decide on 'Sun-something' for their move, but Yang wanted 'Strawberry Sunrise,' her favorite drink while Ruby preferred the cooler (in her opinion) 'Crimson Sunset.' Although her sister thought this would be too far leaning towards Ruby's theme, Ruby herself countered that the same was true for the other option. At an impasse, Weiss was decided to be the tiebreaker, which was why she was deep in thought while the siblings thought up names for their moves with the heiress.
"I've got it! Ice Flower!"
Silence greeted Ruby's exclamation.
"Ruby, that sounds ridiculous."
"Oh, come on, Weiss! It's perfect! Don't you get it? I'm the flower and you're the ice!"
"I agree with Weiss," Blake chimed in.
Yang also spoke up. "Yeah. 'Ice Flower' just sounds… wrong. I don't know."
Ruby said something under her breath, though whatever she had said sounded to Blake like a bunch of gibberish, even with her excellent hearing. "Oh yeah?" She spoke up eventually, "And what do YOU guys think would be better?"
"Honestly," Blake exclaimed, surprising the others with her rapid response, "I was kind of thinking 'White Rose' would work."
Both Weiss and Yang smiled this, nodded their approval, but Ruby frowned and shook her head. "You guys don't really think THAT name is better than 'Ice Flower,' do you?"
Weiss sighed. "I THINK that we should actually be practicing these moves rather than coming up with catchy names for them." She replied, shooting her partner a glare. "Either way, I'd say the three of us have already outvoted you, so that means its 'White Rose' then."
Ruby growled. "Okay, leader overrule! Our team attack will be called 'Ice Flower' and that's that!"
"Fine! Then your and Yang's attack will be called 'Strawberry Sunrise.'" Weiss countered, lifting up her nose and crossing her arms.
"Wha-"
"Yes!"
Yang pumped her fist while Ruby slumped. About to protest, she gave up when she realized that any further arguing against this name would require her to cede ground to 'White Rose,' which she REALLY didn't want to do. Weiss was also right; they needed to get to training eventually and starting another argument might make the white-haired girl give up and leave, which would NOT be good for what she considered to be another team-bonding exercise.
Still, Ruby wanted to have names that could be called out at a moment's notice, so that she would be able to relay the orders in the heat of battle without even needing to think. She had hoped, however, that as the one calling them out, she'd be using names that SHE preferred.
"Fine…" Ruby grumbled, kicking over a pebble. "So, Yang, have you thought of a name for your and Weiss's move yet?"
The brawler honestly hadn't. In fact, she had actually spent most of her time brainstorming ideas for the promise ribbons extension idea she had come up with the other day. While ribbons did seem nice, she'd thought of instead getting three pieces of cloth to tie around her arm, similar to the lavender bandana she wore around her knee…
"Yang?"
This was starting to become a running theme amongst Team RWBY. Yang snapped out of the tangent her brain had gone on and managed to get out a quick 'nope' to answer her leader's question, causing the others to sigh.
Yang folded her arms, slightly frustrated as well. This shouldn't be that hard, she thought, yet when she imagined the colors white and gold, nothing catchy really came to mind. Going back to 'White Rose' (or, as Ruby had enforced, 'Ice Flower,') she started to think outside the box.
What else could I use? Well… Weiss has her glyphs and… she seems to favor Ice Dust. Oh, and my hair catches on fire! Hot and cold… what would sound good? Uh… uhhh…
Yang wracked her brain and rubbed her temples, before finally snapping her fingers.
"I've got it! Freezerburn!"
The others stared at her for a second, before looking to the sky in contemplation. Weiss allowed for a small smile to appear on her face. "Yeah, that could work."
"Better than what I came up with," Ruby said, showing a sheepish grin. When the rest of her team gave her a questioning look, she shrugged. "Yellow Snow."
Yang immediately let out a cackle, unable to control herself. The duo now known as Checkmate, however, were considerably less impressed. Weiss herself cupped her hand over her forehead.
"Well, at least now we can finally train," she said, though her mind had already checked out.
"Alright, Blake!" Ruby exclaimed, her tone being intentionally over-dramatic, "Show us what you can do!"
Blake nodded to her leader and unsheathed Gambol Shroud, both hands holding a blade and lowering herself into her combat stance.
Weiss stood off to her side, studying her teammate's form in preparation for practice with their combination move, Checkmate. Ruby and Yang were standing together further away, the older sister crossing her arms and looking intrigued while the younger one cupped her hands around her mouth, amplifying her orders across the field.
Blake looked ahead at her target (a small straw dummy prepared by Ruby, with several stakes poking out of it to represent an enemy's weapon) and imagined it as a real opponent. Suddenly, she propelled herself forward, leaving behind a shadow clone and striking with several slashes, starting from over her shoulder and gradually hitting more horizontally. She made a blindingly quick strike with each sword during each successive spin, compensating for the brief moment that exposed her back with unrelenting force. Soon, she began alternating her hits from several different directions, which would likely complicate any defensive measures and make retaliation next to impossible. Finally, she launched herself clear of the dummy's range, a clone dissipating from where she had stood in front of the target.
As Blake stuck her landing, Weiss let out a little clap. She'd compared the girl's form within her mind to her own. She'd thought of her own rapier thrusts of Myrtenaster and how the slashes paralleled with the display she had just observed. She smiled as she imagined them fighting alongside one another, each applying continuous pressure upon an opponent with a constant barrage of swings. Finally, she wondered how she might be able to incorporate her different dust glyphs into her attacks, likening Blake's prowess for constant movement to her own liberal use of platform glyphs.
"Weiss? Weiss!"
The girl in question shook her head and looked up at her leader, "Huh?"
Ruby rolled her eyes, to which Weiss winced. Right, she thought. I've been pestering her to get this started; I need to focus. "Sorry, I was just comparing our forms in my head." She apologized, hoping this might save face. "What did you need?"
Ruby sighed quietly before deciding to put it behind her. "I said, go stand next to Blake. We need to have you to actually practice together if we're going to make this work."
Wait, right now?! Weiss suddenly felt nervous. They'd all already shown off their techniques, but she wasn't expecting to combine them yet. She looked over at Blake, whose face seemed to mimic a similar unease. "Are you sure that isn't a bit… well, dangerous?" She shot back at her leader.
"Well, danger IS our job." Ruby replied, her red hair flicking as the wind began to pick up. "We need to move onto the next moves but we should at least try it once!"
Weiss sighed. Ruby was never one for safety precautions, huh? She shifted her gaze to Yang and saw lilac eyes shining with anticipation before she walked up to Blake.
The Faunus's amber eyes were focused down on the ground below. Her expression was twisted into something resembling worry.
Suddenly, a hand came up into her field of view, making her reel back slightly in surprise. Weiss grasped the locks held together by her white ribbon in her hand. Blake's eyes shifted to the other girl's ponytail, the black ribbon dancing in the rising wind.
"It'll be alright, Blake. We both know what we're doing. Our styles will work well together and, mostly importantly, we've got each other's backs."
Blake couldn't manage to hide the smile that formed on her lips. She closed her eyes and reopened them to look into the blue pools in front of her. "Right," she replied simply, clutching one part of Gambol Shroud in each hand and moving back into her stance as Weiss did the same, Myrtenaster held forward with her wrist twisted back to her chest, ready to strike forwards at a moment's notice.
"Alright then! Ready?" Ruby called from her spot with Yang off to the side.
The monochromatic duo nodded.
"GO! CHECKMATE!"
Both girls jumped ahead, slashing into the target with perfectly complementary movements. Within seconds, the straw dummy was practically eviscerated, large pieces of wood flying through the air. Both girls knocked away these pieces of debris with ease as though they were simply more obstacles that they were fighting. With a precise thrust from Myrtenaster, Weiss sent what remained of the target flying forwards and sent down a haste glyph at their feet. Blake sliced through the air at shocking speeds, making several slashes and finishing with a resonance blast from both pieces of her sword, basically turning what was left of the corpse of straw and sticks into sawdust. Finally, Weiss sent down several white glyphs and both girls, still under the time-altering effects of the previous glyph, went through an incredible acrobatic display of backflips, finally landing back at where they had started, sheathing and holstering their weapons.
The Checkmate pair both gave each other a satisfied smile.
Ruby and Yang both smiled as well, proud of how far the pair had come since their incident only a few days ago. Ruby cupped her hands around her mouth once more and called out to them.
"Great job, guys! Okay! Next up, Freezerburn!"
What does Ruby have against the name 'White Rose?' That's an excellent question!
…I should probably think of an answer to it.
And yes, I WILL try to incorporate a 'Strawberry Sunrise' move in at some point. Like, say, four chapters from now? * SHHH! SPOILERS! *
Same as in the second chapter, I tried basing my descriptions of the fighting moves on what I saw in the animation. Hopefully, this turned out well, though you guys will be the judge of that.
And that SHOULD be it for these inter-volume episodes. Note that the episodes before this took place while class was still in session (during a weekend or an extended weekend) while this one takes place during the break; the same one that is about to end in Volume 2, Chapter 1 of the animation.
Speaking of which: The next episode shall return us to our regularly scheduled programs.
