The dust imbued metal flared brightly for several seconds, capable of stunning any unshielded eyes to the point of temporary blindness or disorientation. Fortunately, he had taught her the proper measures to keep from getting hurt so the girl forged on, her silver orbs narrowed in concentration as she moved the sharp point of the dust-filled instrument down the dull contours of the sheath. Engraving dust into objects was a very delicate process, and even the slightest distraction could make the intended effect go awry.
That said, Jack had told her that the wielder of this particular weapon didn't actually have any need for the helpful bonus this process provided.
"She just wants to make it look pretty." he said wryly, looking partly amused and disgruntled. "It's a shame that those who don't need such luxuries are the ones who can afford them. I've known people who needed their weapons done like this"
Jack gestured to the silky material of the parasol with intricate designs of white dust decorating the rim and spreading outwards from the sharp tip like a web.
"But didn't have the money make one. Never mind the fact that dust prices have gone through the roof since that 'gentleman thief' has been robbing stores left and right." He said with a sigh of resentment.
Finishing up the sheath with some final touch ups, Ruby placed it on the workbench before stepping back to admire it with grin, even flashing her pearly whites. A muffled cough behind her made her spin around, Jack standing several feet away from her. Glancing over her shoulder, he whistled appreciatively at the finished product.
"Wow, they sure don't make'em like yours nowadays."
Ruby looked embarrassed at his compliment but the surge of pride from within her was unmistakable. "What can I say? I'm awesomeeee!" She said gleefully, bouncing on her heels. The man rolled his eyes good naturedly and reached out to ruffle her hair. "You did good kid. Just in time too, since your client will be picking it up tomorrow."
"H-Huh? That quick?"
"She has a rather…difficult schedule," Jack let himself bask in the irony of that sentence before forging on, "And she's going to be in town for some business. A win win situation, if anything else."
"Will I…will I get to meet her?"
Ruby asked curiously. The identity of her mysterious customer had been nagging her at the back of her mind, gnawing away at her consciousness for the past weeks. It hadn't helped that Jack had offhandedly mentioned working with her one or two times, further increasing the mystery around the entire situation.
Jack gave her a strained smile. "Well…she did say that she wanted to meet you in person."
Ruby perked up at that. "Really?"
He nodded, unconsciously glancing at the spot Neo had previously occupied the last time she had come to the workshop. The memory of it made him straighten his back instinctively, the sudden action drawing the attention of his charge.
"Are you okay?"
'That depends. Depends on whether you'll ever forgive me for sending you straight into the jaws of the wolf.'
"I'm…I'm fine." He answered weakly. "Just ate something bad was all. Here, you can go grab some food and get some rest while I clear this mess up."
Hidden beneath the shade was Weiss, the girl happy to have an escape from the burning afternoon sun. Birds chirped happily atop branches, singing a song worthy of a children's movie. Unfortunately, the girl had little cheer that the winged vertebrates possessed. Snarling at the annoying noise makers above her, Weiss tightened her grip on Myrtenaster and promptly thrust out her rapier, aiming for the weak end of the branch.
The birds shrilled in surprise as their branch suddenly thrashed about fiercely. With the sound of beating wings and annoyed chirps, they flew away in a flutter of feathers and leaves; leaving the heiress truly alone.
A small smile graced her pale lips as she welcomed the silence. Calm began to wash over her like an ocean tide slowly ebbing away at the cold, wet sand. Her tensed nerves began to relax, limbs and muscles uncoiling as she melted into the bench. "Another great morning…" She mumbled, tilting her head aside so she could massage her own shoulders; the memories of the tense breakfast coming to mind. She winced.
The barely hidden fury in Yang's eyes that never seem to burn out; and the thinly veiled insults that seemed to be on the tip of Blake's tongue. It was bad enough that she still felt guilty over the whole 'test debacle' but it seemed that Blake and her blonde brute of a girlfriend had not yet forgiven her for those –admittedly– careless words.
But could they really blame her?
That Ruby Rose, the childish and immature dolt with the attention span of a goldfish, had taken the top spot? Weiss was still sore over the fact that her partner had one upped her again, as if the becoming the leader of the team hadn't been enough. It was she that truly deserved the spotlight, what with all the hours of studying and back breaking practice…that Ruby would've also gone through. Or done more of, according to what she said.
Weiss bit her lip in disappointment, fine eyebrows dipping down into a sloping arch. It seemed as if her superiority complex ran deeper than she had thought…
And then there was that problem. The elephant big enough to squash Beacon.
Weiss was by no means hiding away from the fact that she had hurt Ruby, and it stood to reason that the girl herself wasn't about to shy away from what team WBY had done to her. The heiress was no saint, and she wasn't about to cower away from the truth of the whole matter. To ignore the fact that the people her partner trusted had turned their backs away. Abandoned her. Treated her as if she were irrelevant. Well, the damage was done and now they were all paying for it.
And the biggest sin? Was that Weiss had let herself take it too far. It wasn't that the heiress had purposely ignored Ruby per say. Originally, she was just trying to take her own grades to the next level, obsessed with trying to be perfect. Joining in the occasional party thrown by team JNPR was the only 'fun' she had allowed herself. The only thing she had to say was that old habits die hard. The need to be first and perfect had been hammered into her since her days at Schnee manor, and getting rid of it was an ongoing process; one that she had not yet perfected.
But still. She should have been more attentive to Ruby, no matter how idiotic or headache inducing it was.
'I'm a terrible partner…' Weiss let out another ragged sigh at the revelation. "They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions." She smiled wryly, examining the thin blade of Myrtenaster in her hands. "But I guess that there's always more than one road."
"They say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, you know."
Startled, she abruptly turned to see the dark, slender form of one cat Faunus sitting casually on the thick branches. Blake twirled gambol shroud, her manner seemingly casual. But Weiss was no fool. She didn't miss the steel that lay underneath those bemused amber locks, nor did she think that the brunette was sitting at such a high angle for nothing.
It would've been a silent and deadly kill, had Blake not given away her position and plunged the blade into her neck, severing the spinal cord in one swift movement. Weiss shivered.
The cat Faunus leaped from her perch and landed in front of the heiress with a soft thump. "Hmph, I like to think that it's one way to clear my thoughts." The two stared at one another unblinkingly, sizing each other up. They had never been comfortable around another; the first time they met could have been compared to akin to leaving a naked flame beside a barrel of oil. Things had smoothed out somewhat since the revelation of Blake's true heritage, but it was there that their relationship came to a standstill.
Team mates. That was just all they were.
Not enemies.
Nor even friends.
"If you want to think of it that way, go ahead." The sentence was punctuated by a small smirk.
"…you've become more infuriating ever since you started dating Yang."
Blake shrugged. "What can I say? Imitation is the best form of flattery."
"Hush you. Her head is already big enough as it is." Weiss groaned. "Dust help us all if she catches wind of this."
Blake finally let out a small laugh, easing the palpable tension which surrounded them, lifting the weight off their backs. "Don't be so dramatic." She stated with an eye roll. The minute gesture could have been mistaken as irritation, though the smile on her lips said otherwise.
"So. To what do I owe this surprise visit?" Weiss asked. "You didn't look like you wanted to exchange words during breakfast. Especially not with those one-liners you were giving me."
The girl looked embarrassed at the reminder of the events which had occurred, amber eyes darting away from blue ones. "Alright, I admit that it wasn't the best thing to do." She admitted. "But Yang would agree that you deserved some of that."
"Oh please." The heiress scoffed, tugging at her ponytail. "Yang would also agree to throw me into a volcano, if it meant taking revenge for that dolt." A sigh. "…Though, I wouldn't do any different if she had hurt Ruby."
Blake nodded. "I know that. But Yang doesn't. And that's precisely the problem."
"What do you mean?"
"Think about it. If you had made that comment on a normal day, Ruby wouldn't have just…snapped like that. Yes, she would have been hurt. However it's unlikely that she would have gone to such extreme measures don't you think?"
"Now look here-" Weiss felt her face flush with anger and guilt at the subtle barb; rearing herself to her full height as she glared daggers at her teammate. Blake held up her hand to keep the heiress from spewing a barrage of insults and lowered her gaze to the ground.
"Don't you see, Weiss?" Blake looked up, a maelstrom of emotions swirling in her normally cool and apathetic eyes. "She was already at her breaking point. We had already pushed her that far. Even if you didn't say what you did, it would only be a matter of time before Ruby snapped. Any one of us could have just said something and then–" She sucked in a deep breath.
Silence fell over them once more.
"We fucked up big time." Weiss muttered wryly, ignoring the shocked look Blake was sending her.
"Do you think Ruby has…?"
Blake snorted. "I doubt it. This isn't something that can be swept under the rug. We've really hurt her, Weiss. And to be honest, I'm not sure if she's ever going to forgive us."
"She will." The heiress answered confidently.
"And how do you know that?"
"Because. She's Ruby." She answered without skipping a beat. "We all know who she is. The insufferable idiot–" Though the words were harsh, the tone of voice betrayed the affection beneath. "–who can assemble a weapon blindfolded but struggle with a two page essay; wake up at two am for a cookie and takes insanely long study breaks in the bathroom. She's my partner, Blake. I think I know her well enough."
The cat Faunus frowned and shook her head. "People change. The Ruby you knew then wouldn't be the same as the current Ruby. After all, we weren't involved in her life up till about two weeks ago when she blew up at us. And now…"
A pause.
"How well do we really know her?"
'Huh?'
A grey room. There was little to no light, the lack of windows making sure that whatever was here…was kept a secret. Ruby stood at the far end of the room, silver eyes darting about wildly. 'What's going on?' The thought ran through her mind at a million miles per hour, bouncing off the walls of her cranium, but strangely enough, her body was relaxed. She felt as languid as a cat who was stretched out beneath the sun.
Ruby started at the sudden sobbing that irrupted, her heart jumping at the eerie noises. The creepiness was further facilitated by the fact that she could see no one, though she could tell that the sources of the sounds were coming from the center of the small room. But soon, small shadowy figures began to appear. She strained her eyes to see but then–
"No please!"
Came the shrill cry of terror. It was a child's voice, this much she could tell, so full of terror and fear that it wracked her body with shivers. 'What the hell–'
A low gurgle split the air. The room exploded with screams, some male, some female but they were all high pitched and childlike. A cacophony of screams. She blinked.
The walls were no longer grey.
Smears of red handprints filled up the once dull grey wall. Similarly, tracks of red were painted all over the beige flooring, like somebody had spilt a bucket of paint and had promptly stepped in it before beginning a game of tag. Ruby swallowed, her nerves tingling strangely as she looked around. Bile rose in her throat when she registered the scene before her. Small corpses were littered all over the room; the state of the bodies could bring nightmares to even the fiercest hunters. The smaller cadavers had thin, long needles sticking out from various parts of their body, their precious liquid trickling onto the ground and contributing to the ever growing red sea.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Silver eyes darted to the side. A slightly larger body was strapped to an awful looking chair, bearing its nuts and bolts in all its rusted glory, surrounded by silver wires and bright red buttons that looked like something out of a cartoon.
What made Ruby's stomach turn was not the small mountain of corpses behind the chair, but the state of the body itself. The skin was charred black, all the muscles and sinews burned to a fine crisp. She could almost smell the stench of burnt flesh all the way from where she was standing. She choked and peeled her eyes away.
"How pathetic…" A soft, melodious voice drifted into Ruby's ears. It was slightly pitched and obviously a girl's, and as Ruby turned towards the source of the voice; she took in the sight before her.
Silver eyes greedily drank in the small, lithe figure, immediately noticing the distinctive tri-coloured hair which unraveled down to the girl's shoulders. "Children are no fun…" She whispered softly. She lifted up her gaze, looking straight at Ruby. "They break too easily."
The girl stood up, her long, white dress swaying as she began walking towards her. Despite the messy state of the room, her dress was pristine and seemed to give off an ethereal glow. Ruby's eyes were glued to her petite looking hands which were dyed blood red.
She stopped in front of Ruby, her pink and brown irises interchanging when she blinked. The feather like touch on her face made Ruby jump, and she shuddered when she felt the sticky liquid eclipse the soft touch. It was obvious that this girl was capable of causing harm, the bodies in the room were a testament to this, but the touch was surprisingly gentle, cradling Ruby like a fragile glass doll.
"Will you break as well?"
Neo smiled.
The hand tightened around her neck, and Ruby her heart stop in her chest as she opened her mouth to scream–
Her eyes flew open. Chest heaving and mouth dry, Ruby gripped her blanket tightly, the last vestiges of the nightmare fading into oblivion as sunlight poured through the binds like an overflowing waterfall. She gulped the sweet oxygen greedily, her heart slowing down from rapid thumps to normality.
"Fuck." She mumbled, rubbing her eyes shakily. This was the first time she had a dream so…intense.
She threw a glance at the journal lying innocently by her table. The velvet material seemed to soak up all the light, making it glow somewhat ominously. Her nightmare was almost identical to the situations described in it, although, this was the first time she had not been merely a figure who observed. But was a victim of them instead.
She shivered.
'Something's gonna happen. But what?'
AN:
Hey guys. I finally got around to updating. Sorry for the lateness. I found it really hard to write this chapter for some reason and to add on to that, i also lost alot of money recently so it's sorta getting me down. The next chapter will be up much quicker and answer the annoying cliffs in this chapter. Thank you all for following and reviewing this story! I didn't think it would be so well recieved. :)