Chapter 41

Weiss

She was trying to pay attention in class but was failing miserably. Her mind was racing at millions of miles an hour, how should she dress? Where should she take Ruby? Wait, why did she ask Ruby out on a date without a plan? Ooooh nononononono, she fucked up. After she hit this point her mind shut down, and the amount of attention she was paying to class became non-existent, and she thought she was having a panic attack. For 3 more class periods. Eventually she came to a conclusion and made up her mind to take ruby to a slightly fancy restaurant downtown. "RRRRIIiINNNGGG" the bell broke her out of her stupor and she stuffed her things into her bag and quickly left class. When she got to the dorm the clock said she had about 2 and a half hours before Ruby was scheduled to get back from whatever practice she was getting from Colin. She did her homework, cleaned, took a shower and was done 5 minutes before Ruby was going to get back.

Ruby

When she arrived in the Gymnasium she made her way over to Coin, who was standing next to some grey boxes on the ground. "Take a seat on a box while we wait for your comrades." He said gesturing towards the closest box. She took a seat and waited a few minutes as Yang came in followed by Jaune and Pyrrah. "Take a seat on a box" he said pointing to Jaune and Yang "Why might you be here miss Nikos?" he asked as Yang and Jaune took seats. "I wanted to oversee the training." She said leaning against the wall "Everyone who's here works, would you like to spar with me or join the rest." He asked casually. "I would love to join, but….." she trailed off giving Jaune a worried look. Colin seemed to know what was going on "Ok you Muppets, press the black button on the side of the box, take a deep breath and stay still." He said before turning and walking over to Pyrrah.

Ruby did as she was told and scanned the perfectly rectangular box for the aforementioned button. She found it on the backside and pressed it. The box melted into a pool of grey liquid which made its way to Ruby's feet, then it started climbing. "Don't worry Ruby, deep breaths everyone." Colin said from behind her, she dared not move as the liquid made its way up her legs. She took a deep breath as it finally reached her face and engulfed her whole body. After a moment she felt the liquid stop moving and opened her eyes. She was in a suit of sorts, with a mask of a clear material covering her face, she took a tentative breath, and she had to work hard to breath.

"You might find it difficult to breath, the environmental suits are restricting just enough oxygen to make the training very difficult, but not enough to cause hypoxia or any permanent damage." He yelled and Ruby turned around, finding moving to be just as difficult as breathing. Looking over at Yang and Jaune she saw what the suit looked like. A tight fitting grey bodysuit with a facemask made of something clear. She turned to see Colin finish up a conversation with Pyrrah before turning back to them, "Let's start with a mile run, one end of the gym to the other 15 times." He said as the group groaned and started walking to the opposite end of the gym to start. She started jogging and kept the pace up for 5-6 laps before she had to slow to a light job for the rest of it. At the end of the grueling mile she stopped, leaning on her knees for support and panting heavily.

She looked over and saw jaune and Yang completing their last one or two laps. Sprawling on the floor she waited for the other two while panting heavily. She got up as Yang and Jaune finished, Jaune collapsing into a heap as soon as he finished. "Aww c'mon, we haven't even started yet!" Colin teased helping jaune up. He looked them over and though for a few moments "Remove the masks, the suit should be all you need, it is adding 10 pounds to your overall weight, I think." He said as Ruby reached up and pulled the mask off, she heard Jaune taking massive breaths. "Now me move on to strength training, and agility." He said looking at them smirking. "You know, it would help to see what this trainings end result is." Jaune slowly said in between breaths. Colin though for a moment "Sounds reasonable, I will do everything you will and show you what rewards this has, fair?" he asked

Ruby looked at the others and got general nods "Sounds like a plan." Yang said "How bout we see you do the mile in these suits." Yang said, but Ruby knew there was going to be a catch. Colin nodded and some more grey liquid emerged from a duffel bag and surrounded him. It shifted form into the same suits they were in, but he still had the mask on. "And put it at its heaviest setting and restrict the most air it can without killing you." Yang added smirking. Colin chuckled as he pushed some buttons on his suit and the hardwood floor cracked under the weight. Ruby was shocked as she saw him casually walk over to the wall, destroying the floor on his way. He got in a runners pose and she was in disbelief, 'there's no way he can do it' she thought to herself. Then he took off, so fast she could barely keep track as he flashed from one side of the gym to the other, the only way to follow was to look at the floor as it was turned into mulch.

He finished in seconds, stopping and pulling the mask off, he wasn't even sweating. Her mouth hung open in shock. "I might want to fix that before Glynda kills me." He joked causally. "Now on with the rest of the training!" he yelled patting a disbelieving Jaune on the shoulder and guiding them to the assortment of weights and machines, this was going to be fun.

1 hour later

If there was a word for when you hurt so much that you stopped hurting, that's where Ruby was at. She was trying to walk back to the dorm with Yang but neither could stand properly, so Colin picked Yang up bridal style and started carrying her back to the dorm, promising he would be back to get her in a bit. She waved in their general direction and slumped onto the floor, not even bother to look up as she heard the doors open. "Well, well, well, look what we have here. Ruby Rose, what a coincidence, it's so nice to see you." Came an angry male voice from near the gym doors. She lifted herself up with a bench to see Cardin and his team standing at the doors. "What do you want?" she asked "Oh that's simple, since I can't get revenge on that…. Whatever he is. For what he did to me, I'll just have to take it out on you." He said smirking as him as he and the team advanced towards her.

She was too tired to run much less fight. Then Cardinal pulled his mace, the rest of his team following suit as they closed the distance. She tried to run but only got a few feet before stumbling to the ground. Trying to think of a way out she turned around to see a mace about to connect with her face. It stopped mere inches away and bounced off as if it had hit rubber. Cardinal staggered back and looked down in confusion, then she noticed it. A light blue-ish field around her, so clear she almost missed it. "Emergency shield at 95 percent." Came a voice inside her head. Cardin regained his balance and proceeded to hit Ruby as hard as he could, this time he didn't bounce off. Ruby felt the force of the blow in her chest, "Emergency shield at 88 percent and dropping." Came the voice again. Encouraged by his success Cardin's team joined in and they proceeded to hit Ruby with everything they had.

The shield was dropping fast as the voice was calling out ever decreasing numbers, at around 10 percent she felt a massive wave of power wash over her.