Chapter XVI
"Wake up, Noctis."
Noctis opened his eyes to see that he was completely surrounded by darkness "Where am I?" Noctis asked as he got up from the floor.
Just then a figure slowly began to appear out of the darkness, the figure appeared as a woman, dressed in a white and black combat dress, as a white cape and hood covered her face. "Noctis Lucis Caelum, you look so much like your father and mother."
"Y-You knew my father…. And mother?" Noctis asked shocked at what he was hearing "You're the one that gave me the Sword of The Wise, right?"
"That is correct, young King."
"Why?"
"Because it is my duty to help the next line of Lucis and I have a daughter that cares for you."
"W-Wait… Daughter?"
The female figure removed the white hood that covered her face and revealed a face and red hair the looked all too familiar to Noctis "No way…" Noctis said in shock as he looked at the woman that resembled his girlfriend. "You're Ruby's mom?"
The woman offered Noctis a soft smile that too reminded him of the gentleness of Ruby and nodded "That's correct, my name is Summer Rose. It's a pleasure to meet you, Noctis."
"Y-Yeah, y-you too."
"You must have many questions for me."
"That's a bit of an understatement…"
"I'm afraid those questions will have to wait for another time."
"Wait, why? You haven't told me anything!"
"Outside of Mistral there is a meteorite impact site, go there and search for answers." Summer said as she began to fade away "There you will find help."
Just then Noctis heard a knocking and woke up in his dorm room. He picked up his phone as the time read 1:39 am, then the knocking continued at the door. Noctis looked around at his teammates who were fast asleep and reluctantly got out of his bed. He made his way to the door and opened it and saw Ruby in her pajamas sheepishly looking at Noctis.
"Ruby, it's 1 in the morning, what are you doing?"
"Well, team RWBY's dorm doesn't really feel like a friendly environment tonight, is it okay if I sleep with you tonight?"
"U-Uhm sure." Noctis moved to the side to let in Ruby and she made her way to his bed. Noctis grabbed a pillow from his bed and placed it on a sofa that PING had in their room.
"What are you doing?" The crimsonette asked her boyfriend
"I'm sleeping on the sofa?"
"Why?"
"I-I mean… because…"
Ruby's face began to blush redder than her hair as she began to realise what Noctis was insinuating "D-Don't be dumb! Just get in bed!" She quietly yelled
Noctis got up from the couch and got into his bed as Ruby scooted over to make room for him, Noctis then covered them both and they both laid there in the silence.
"So… what happened?"
"I-I don't really want to talk about it right now, can I tell you later?"
"S-Sure." With that Noctis closed his eyes as he laid facing the ceiling and attempted to go back to sleep. After a few minutes Ruby grabbed Noctis' right arm and tried to put it over her.
"What are you doing?" Noctis asked as he tried not to laugh at Ruby's attempt to move his arm.
The crimson teen then looked at Noctis and he saw sadness in her face. Whatever happened with team RWBY definitely had affected Ruby. "C-Can you hold me?" She sheepishly asked Noctis.
Without a second thought Noctis put his arm around Ruby and brought her in closer to him. She snugged into his chest and let out a relaxing sigh "Thanks, Noctis."
Noctis kissed the top of Ruby's head and closed his eyes "Good night, Ruby."
Morning
"Awww look at the cute couple!"
Noctis heard a voice say that sounded like his brother
"You know he's not going to happy, right Prompto?"
"Oh relax, Iggy. This'll be for their wedding."
Noctis slowly opened his eyes to his brother taking pictures of him and Ruby cuddling each other as they slept. "I'm going to put this one on the wedding cake!"
Noctis then fully opened his eyes and was now sending death glares at his older brother
"Oh come on, Noct. Say hi to your future children!"
"Alright Prompto, that's enough. Leave him be." Ignis said as he took Prompto's camera from him as he held a coffee mug in his other hand.
"Oh come on, Ignis! Give it back!"
"Are you going to stop pestering Noctis?"
"Fine, I'll stop."
Ignis gave Prompto his camera back and looked at the sleeping teen that was next to Noctis.
"What is she doing here, Noctis?"
"Well she said that something had happened with her team and she didn't want to sleep there last night so she slept in here with me."
"Are you sure that's all that happened?" Prompto teasingly said causing Noctis to throw one of his pillows at him.
Noctis looked around the room and noticed that one of his teammates was missing "Hey, where's Gladio?"
"Well, Ms. Scarlatina came by this morning and Gladiolus left with her."
"Oooooooh, looks like the big guy got himself a girlfriend, told you guys he liked her! Now all we need to do is get a girlfriend for you, Iggy!" Prompto said as he put his arm around Ignis.
"No thank you, Prompto, I don't need your help."
"Yeah, he already has Blake, isn't that right, Specs?" Noctis said joining in on the teasing
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ooooooh yeah, you two have been spending a lot of time together."
Noctis felt movement coming from his side and turned to see that Ruby was waking up. She let out a long yawn as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Good morning, you guys."
"Morning." The three boys replied
"So Ruby, what happened last night?"
Ruby looked down at the covers with sadness present on her face "Blake left."
Hearing this caused Ignis to almost drop the coffee mug he had. "What do you mean "She left"?"
"Well while we were in Vale Blake and Weiss got in an argument and when we came back they were still going at each other and then… Blake had told us that she was a faunus… and that she used to be a part of the White Fang."
Noctis and Prompto had looks of disbelief while Ignis just continued to listen to Ruby "After that she ran out of the room and she hasn't returned."
After Ruby had finished the room fell into silence until Ignis spoke up "Very well, we'll head back to Vale and search for her, she couldn't have gone far."
"Wow, Specs. You're taking this whole faunus and White Fang this pretty well."
"It's because I already knew that."
"Wait… what?!"
"She told me a few days ago, but she made me promise not to tell anyone, so I didn't."
"Wait… What was her faunus trait?" Prompto asked as his curiosity got the best of him.
"The cat ears." Ignis said as his pointed to the top of his head.
"She does love tuna." Noctis said
Ruby got out of Noctis' bed and head towards the door "I'm going to let Yang and Weiss know what we're going to do, we'll meet you guys by the transits."
The three members of PING nodded in agreement and Ruby made her way back to her dorm
"I wonder where Gladio is?" Prompto asked
Beacon courtyard
Gladio and Velvet were sitting under the shade of a tree that stood over the garden. Velvet was sitting with her back against the tree and Gladiolus was laying on the grass with his head on Velvet's lap. The two of them were enjoying each other's company in the silence as they enjoyed the nice cool breeze.
"Hey Gladio."
"Yeah?"
"You know, my friends loved you."
"I'm glad." Gladio replied as he smiled "I'm kind of surprised Coco approved of me" He said as he chuckled
"Honestly me too, she's always been protective over me like a big sister."
"Well I'm just happy I got to meet your friends and that they approve of me."
"Me too" Velvet said as she returned the soft smile. "So when am I going to meet your friends?"
"Huh?"
"I haven't met your friends yet!"
"Yes you have, you've met Noctis, Prompto and Ignis."
"Not really, plus I haven't even gotten the chance to thank Noctis for what he did to team CRDL."
"Trust me, when you meet them you'll know exactly why I kind of embarrassed of them." Gladio said with a chuckle as Velvet let out a chuckle of her own. Silence fell between them and Gladio lifted his head a bit off of Velvet's lap, he used his right hand to bring her head down half away to meet his and gave her a passionate kiss on the lips.
"What was that for?" Velvet said with a smile as she held Gladio's head
"It's been a while."
Velvet then cupped Gladio's head and kissed him again. "I love you, Gladio."
"I love you too, Velvet."
"So what's the story between you four? You guys met back in Insomnia, right?"
"Yup. As you know Noctis was the Prince of Insomnia, and Prompto is his brother. I met the both of them back when I was about 12. My dad was good friends with King Regis and the King took notice of my skills with a sword and asked me to train Noctis so I did. At first he was a real brat, always complained about having train.. Hell he still does, but I guess I just started to care for him like a little brother. I met Ignis while I had been training Noctis, he was Noctis' tutor. So long story short we became good friends after a while, hell they're more like my brothers than my friends."
"That's sweet."
Gladio closed his eyes as he took in the fresh air and Velvet began to run her hand through his hair and they just sat there in silence, until that silence was broken by the ringing on Gladiolus' scroll.
"Hello?" Gladiolus said as he answered his scroll "Right now? Okay I'll meet you guys there." He hung up his scroll and let out an annoyed sigh "I have to go, Velvet my team needs me."
Gladiolus got up from the ground and helped Velvet to her feet. "Do you want to tag along?"
"You don't mind?"
"Why would I mind?" Gladiolus said as he took Velvet's hand "Come on, it'll be fine."
"O-Okay."
Later
Noctis, Ignis, and Prompto are standing with three of the four members of team RWBY waiting for the transit to Vale to arrive. Prompto looks out in the distance and sees Gladiolus walking towards them hand in hand with Velvet.
"Awwww look at this, our little Gladio got himself a girlfriend, that is just the cutest thing!" Prompto said teasingly
"Guys this is Velvet, Velvet this is my team. Our leader Noctis, his older brother Prompto and Ignis."
"Yo" Noctis said
"What's up!" Prompto said
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Velvet."
"It's a pleasure to meet all of you as well." Velvet replied with a smile
"And I'm sure you already met team RWBY."
"Hey Velvet!" Ruby said smiling and waving at the faunus girl.
"Hye Ruby!" Velvet said returning the smile and wave
With that the young Huntsman and Huntresses made their way into the transit and took their seats. Noctis took a seat next to Ruby, Prompto was seated next to Yang and Weiss, and Ignis was seated next to Gladiolus and Velvet.
"So when we find Blake you promise to be nice Weiss?" Prompto jokingly said only for Weiss to fold her arms and turn her head away from him. Prompto let out an awkward chuckle and rubbed the back of his head.
"You tried." Yang said patting him on the shoulders.
Before long they had arrived in Vale and made their way off of the transit.
"Alright! We'll be able to cover more ground if we split up! I'll go with Noctis, Yang you go with Prompto, Gladio will go with Velvet, and Ignis will go with Weiss, we'll me up back here at the break of dawn!"
Each group went their own way and began the search for their friend and teammate.
"I hope Blake is okay." Ruby said as she was looking down at the ground
"Come on, Ruby. You should know that Blake can take care of herself, We'll find her in no time."
Ruby did her best to smile at Noctis' attempt to make her feel better "I know but… I don't want this to break up team RWBY."
"It won't. Friends fight all the time. If team PING stopped being a team every time after we fight, there wouldn't be a team PING, just last week we had a fight that almost ended in an actual fight!"
"Really? What happened?"
"Well…. Prompto ate the last cupcake that I had been saving.
Ruby couldn't help but chuckle at the reasoning of their fight
"Hey laugh all you want, that was a really good cupcake."
Noctis' words of advice had helped the young crimson teen relax and return to her old happy self.
"You're right, Noctis! It's going to take more than that to break up team RWBY!"
Noctis smiled seeing Ruby cheer up, knowing that he was able to get her that way. The two of them continued down the streets of Vale calling out for their faunus friend, but received no answer to their hails. They took a turn at one of the street corners and Ruby had accidently ran into someone.
"Oomf" Ruby said as she fell to the ground
"I'm terribly sorry, young girl. I really should watch where I am going." Ardyn said as he helped Ruby from the ground.
"I-It's fine, it was my fault really." Ruby replied while she dust herself off.
"You look familiar." Noctis said as he eyed Ardyn "Do I know you?"
"Well I don't think so, but it is an honour the young King would think that he would know a humble man like me." Ardyn said as he took off his hat and bowed "I am terribly sorry for making this short but I must get going, I do hope we meet again."
"He was…. Weird." Ruby said
"Wait…. Did he call me King? How the hell?!"
Noctis turned to see if he could find the strange man but he had disappeared into a crowd of people. "How did he know who I was?"
"Huh?" Ruby questioned as she gave her boyfriend an odd look.
"No one was suppose to know I was here, how did he know? The only people that know are the students and teachers and Beacon, and I've never seen him before."
"Noct, you're thinking too much about this, he probably just recognized you from the television or news or something."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
Ruby and Noctis continued to make their way through the town and decided to take a break at and eat lunch. Noctis ordered fish and chips for himself and Ruby ordered a burger and fries for her. They took their tray of food and sat at a table near the front of the store that gave a good view of the outside.
"Hey Ruby?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you know your mom? I know she died when you were young but did you know her?"
Ruby looked down as Noctis asked her this and Noctis saw the look of sadness his question had caused
"I-I'm sorry Ruby I shouldn't ha-"
"It's fine Noct. Yeah I did know her, she was the kindest and bravest mom anyone could ever have. How about you? You've never really told me anything about your mom."
"W-Well… That's because I've never met my mom…"
"Really?"
"My mom left when I was still a baby, and my dad never spoke about her or anything."
"That's sad, I think everyone should atleast know who their parents are."
"Yeah, well she left so that means she didn't love me so I don't really care if I ever meet her." Noctis said angrily
"Noctis, you shouldn't say that. You don't know why she left, she must've had a good reason."
Noctis just sat their silently as he ate his food, Ruby then grabbed one of his opened hands "I'll never leave you, Noctis. I'll always be here for you know matter what!"
Noctis smiled at this and grabbed her hand in return "Same goes for me, Rubes."
As the two of them held each other's hand and looked at each other with smiles on their faces a girl wearing a green dress with a black pants and orange hair walked past the window they were sitting by and smiled as she saw Ruby and rushed into the restaurant.
"Salutations, Ruby, my friend!" The orange girl shouted in glee as she hugged Ruby in a bear hug
"Friend of yours? Noctis said as he tried to hold in his laugh as he watched the orange haired girl squeeze all the air out of his girlfriend.
"Y-You could say that." Ruby said as she gasped for air "P-Please let me go."
The orange haired girl let Ruby down and Ruby invited her to sit with them. "Penny, this is my boyfriend Noctis, Noctis this is Penny."
"Salutations King Noctis." Penny said as she saluted
"How did you know I was King Noctis?"
"My father, he's in the military and he told me all about you and Insomnia, it's really sad what happened to your kingdom."
"Yeah, it is."
"Are you two on a date?"
"Not really, we're looking for my teammate, Blake."
"The faunus?"
"How did you know she was a faunus?" Noctis said with a raised brow
"The cat ears." Penny said as she pointed at her bow
"It was that obvious, huh?"
"Well don't you worry, Ruby, my friend. I will not rest until we find your teammate!"
Penny shot up from her seat and grabbed Ruby by her arm as she dragged her out the door of the restaurant while Ruby mouthed "Help me" to the young King who did nothing but laugh at what was happening
"You two go ahead, I'll catch up!"
Noctis' laugh died down to a chuckle and he continued to eat his food, while he picked at the fries that Ruby had left uneaten.
With Ignis and Weiss
Weiss had explained everything that had happened that led up to Blake leaving and now she was receiving the cold shoulder from him. The two of them walked together down the streets looking for Blake, but Ignis always made sure that he stayed ahead and as far as he could from Weiss.
"Ignis could you wait!" The heiress shouted, tired of trying to catch up to him but he continued to walk "I said wait!" That's when Ignis stopped
"Weiss, you are the most selfish person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing!"
"How dare you!"
"Don't you ever think of anyone else other than yourself? I get it you were a victim, attending funerals of friends and family members that were killed by the White Fang, but don't you think Blake is too. She too had to attend funerals of friends and family members of those that were killed by your father and his company. I've visited your father's factories with King Regis and to say that he treats the faunus workers would be a massive understatement, don't get me wrong I don't condone what the White Fang has become and I too have lost people to the White Fang but I will not allow any of that to change my views that I have about Blake. If you really are her friend… Her teammate you would give her the benefit of the doubt."
Ignis continued to walk after that and Weiss stood there thinking about everything Ignis had said and for the first time she thought about Blake's feelings rather than her own.
With Yang and Prompto
Yang and Prompto were sitting on a park bench eating hot dogs that the two of them had gotten from a hot dog stand
"I'm sure they can find Blake without our help." Prompto said as he stuffed his face with the hot dog
"I'm sure they can, Ruby's resilient." The blond brawler replied as she too stuffed her face with hot dog.
With Gladiolus and Velvet
"I hope we find Blake, I feel really bad for her." Velvet said
"We will, I know we will, and thanks for coming along, I know it means a lot to team RWBY."
"Of course, I'll help in any way that I can! Though, I know why she would want to keep the whole faunus thing hidden." Velvet looked down at the sidewalk as she said that, sadness present in her voice "There's not a whole lot of people that are nice to us, I'd hide it if I could too."
Gladiolus grabbed the faunus girl and brought her in close to him surprising her.
"Well I would hate for you to hide your bunny ears, they're apart of you and I think they're pretty damn adorable!" Gladiolus said as he messed with her ears causing her to blush
"Gladio! You know they're sensitive!"
Gladiolus laughed at his girlfriend's reaction and they continued to walk hand in hand as they shouted for the cat faunus.
With Noctis, Ruby, and Penny
Noctis had caught up with Ruby and Penny but stayed a little behind them as they were chatting
"So you're mad at Blake?"
"No, I'm not. Weiss is."
"Why?"
"Well Blake isn't who we thought she was."
Penny stopped in her tracks and gasped "Is she a man?"
A small laugh escaped Noctis' mouth as Penny said that which earned him a dirty look from Ruby which made him stop instantly."
"No, she's not a man. I don't really know what she is, she didn't really give us time to talk before she ran out."
"I don't really have friends, but if I did I would want them to talk to me about stuff!"
"Yeah, me too, Penny."
Just then there was an explosion in the distance and smoke began to fill the sky where the explosion had taken place.
"That seemed close, we should go see what's going on!" Noctis said
"Shouldn't we wait for the others?"
"We don't have time, come on!"
With that Noctis, Penny, and Ruby made their way to the docks, where the explosion happened. Upon arriving to the docks, the tree of them headed on top of a roof to do some recon of the situation. Noctis took notice of a small group of White Fang members that were fighting a monkey faunus who was wearing an opened shirt that showed his abs and blue jeans. Noctis decided to help the faunus and summoned his engine blade. He threw the blade towards one the White fang members and warped to it and drop kicked the soldier, he jumped back up and summoned his lance and took out another soldier, a soldier had gotten behind him but was taken out by the monkey faunus with nunchucks.
"Thanks for the help, dude!" The faunus said
"No problem!"
Noctis then spotted Blake fighting Torchwick and saw that she was losing the fight
"Ruby! I see Blake, she is fighting Torchwick!" He said as he motioned towards where said fight was happening
Torchwick landed the final blow to Blake that sent her flying into a shipping container, Ruby then fired a warning shot at his feet.
"Well if it isn't little Red and look at that the young Prince… or should I say King now! Quite a promotion. I have someone who is dying to meet you, your majesty!"
"Ruby, is he a friend of yours?"
"Get back Penny, he's dangerous."
"Don't ignore me when I'm talking to you!"
Torchwick then fires a shot from his cane and hits Ruby making her fly into the wall. Penny then gives Torchwick a terrifying look and begins to walk towards the edge of the roof
"Penny, don't!"
"Don't worry, Ruby. I am combat ready!"
Swords appear out of Penny's back and she jumps off the roof as she heads towards the ground she sends some of the swords flying towards a group of White fang soldiers and takes a few of them out with the swords. She super hero lands on the ground and gets up as her swords levitate behind her, using a string connected to the swords she swings the string controlled swords, taking out the rest of the soldiers, another group of soldiers run towards Penny as they see her taking out the first group of soldiers. Penny makes the swords spin in a circle and sends it flying to the running group of soldiers, taking them out with no effort.
"Wow…" Noctis said as he watched wide eyed at Penny's fighting abilities
Warships begin to fly towards Penny and they fire at her which she blocks using her swords, she then brings out two more swords and launches them at the wall behind her and uses it to pull her back towards the wall. She brings her arms out and her swords begin to circle in front of her, creating a green energy blast and blasts the warships out of the sky. Another warship begins to lift a shipping container of dust off of the ground, but is stopped by Penny's swords, she pulls on her swords which causes the warship to crash into the other shipping containers, during this Torchwick used this time to escape without being noticed.
Later
Noctis, Ruby, Penny, Blake, and Sun were all sitting on shipping boxes as the cops collect evidence from the scene. Yang, Prompto, Ignis, Weiss, Gladiolus, and Velvet walk towards the sitting group and Blake gets up from the box as soon as she sees Ignis. She nearly runs towards him and hugs him with tears forming in her eyes
"Don't you ever run off on me again, Ms. Belladonna."
"I'm sorry, Ignis."
Ignis gently puts his hand on Blake's chin and she looks at him and they both share a kiss.
"Wait… What?!" Prompto said surprised
"We wanted to tell you guys."
"But we never had the chance." Ignis finished as he pushed his glasses up
Blake let go of Ignis and made her way Weiss
"Weiss I want you to know that I'm no longer associated with the White Fang back when I-" Blake started but was interrupted by the heiress
"Stop, You know how long we've been looking for you? 12 hours, that means I've had 12 hours to think about this and in those 12 hours I decided…. I don't care"
"You don't care?"
"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?"
"No, I-I haven't been since I-"
"Up up up I don't want to hear it, all I want to know is that next time something this big comes up you come to your teammates, and not some" Weiss started as she glared at Sun "Someone else."
Blake looked at the rest of her friends and they all gave her encouraging smiles "Of course" She replied as she wiped away a stray tear.
"Yeah, team RWBY is back together!" Ruby shouted in glee as she put her arms up
"I'm still not quite sure how I feel about you!" Weiss said as she pointed her finger towards Sun who just put his hands up in surrender and let out an awkward laugh
"Hey wait a minute… Where's Penny?" Ruby asked as she looked around and noticed the orange haired girl was missing.
"Don't know, but man she was definitely combat ready."
Later that night, undisclosed location
"I found that brat you were looking for, turns out he's a student at Beacon Academy." Torchwick said as he sat on a table in a warehouse that was loaded with dust containers
"Oh, I know. I had a run in with him and his little girlfriend." Ardynn said as he took of his hat and brushed his hair back and placed the hat back
"Wait you already knew? And you have us still searching for him?"
"Well, I am paying you, might as well make you lot do something to earn your money. Besides, everything is in place, let your men know, Soon we will attack Minstral." Ardynn said with a smile "Remnant's destruction is almost upon us."
Outside of Beacon Academy
Noctis stood alone on the cliff overlooking Beacon Academy like he had been instructed to, but no one had shown up. He had been waiting for almost 20 minutes now and decided to head back to his dorm room until a man wearing a black hoodie and a Guy Fawkes mask to cover his face appeared behind him
"Hello, King Noctis, I am a small part of a group known as The Sons and Daughters of Luci. We would like to offer you our services."
"Services? Like what?"
"We work in the shadows, we handle reconnaissance and espionage,we have inside men in the imperial army, they relay any useful information to us and these services are available to you, your highness."
"And why should I trust you?"
The man brings out a folder from his sweater and hands them to Noctis "This is everything our organization knows about Niflheim, they're weapons, troop size, etc…"
"And why are you helping me?"
"Because, Insomnia is our home too."
Before Noctis could get another word in the man had disappeared into the night.
"I just got Batmaned."
To Be Continued...