Ruby's First Quest!
Alright! Just a quick little oneshot for you all! The next chapter of Broken Wings should be out soon enough, but here's just a little something in the meantime! Hope you like it!
"A quest?" Wrath asked as he leaned against a nearby wall.
"Yep! A quest!" Ruby confirmed, bouncing excitedly as she clapped her ajdns together rapidly.
"You're kidding right?" Wrath asked, not even bothering to wait for an answer before turning to Anduin. "Anduin, tell me she's kidding."
"Afraid not. A few hours ago a large group of adventures came to collect the bounty on a small bandit encampment." Anduin explained, placing his hands on Ruby's shoulders to stop her incessant bouncing. "When Ruby saw all the weapons they got as rewards she wanted to try it out for herself."
"Alright Uh..." Wrath glanced around in search of any sort of opportunity that could present itself.
Such an opportunity soon made itself known when they elf spotted kids, a boy and a girl, pinning a poster to a small notice board that was hanging up a few paces away from the small group.
"Do you think we'll ever see Mr. Whiskers again?..." The boy asked, turning to the girl with tears in his eyes.
"I'm sure we will... Let's just keep putting these pictures up." The girl assured as she finished pinning the poster up against the wooden frame of the notice board. "Someone is bound to spot him eventually..."
They soon strolled away from the notice board, presumably in search of more spots to hang posters.
The moment the children were out of sight, Wrath strolled over and snatched the poster from the wall, glaring at the image of the animal staring back at him. "There, this'll work..."
He held the picture out to Ruby, who took at it and made an involuntary squeak of excitement at the prospect of going on her very first quest!
"Your first quest is to find this... Uh..." Wrath snatched the picture back from Ruby's hands for a moment, staring at the crude painting in an attempt to pinpoint the species of whatever what staring back at him. "Cat! This cat!..."
"Oooh, okay!" Ruby said as she took back the poster, staring at it herself for a moment before snapping her attention back to Wrath with an excited grin. "What's my reward?"
"Fucked if I know-..." Wrath trailed off when he saw Ruby's smile quickly fade away from her face. Not wanting to deal with a sad Ruby, Wrath turned to the prince. "Uh, I mean... Anduin any ideas?"
"Well the head chef did mention that he was going to be making a fresh batch of his special cookies for dessert tonight..." Anduin offered, pinching his chin in thought. "Perhaps I could convince him to make a few extra-..."
"Done!" Ruby was gone before the poster even touched the ground.
"H-hang on! Ruby!" Anduin cried at the place where the reaper once stood. "You don't even know where the cat was last-..."
"Don't bother Anduin. Knowing her, she'll find it eventually." Wrath interupted with a solemn shake of his head. "Whether or not it'll still be in one piece is a different story but-..."
"Wrath!"
"What? It's true!..."
Anduin sighed as he covered his face with his palm. "Yeah, I know..."
"Alright... Well if I'm going to succeed on this epic venture, I'm going to need backup!" Ruby, who was standing in front of the door to the castle's private library, exclaimed as she slammed her fists into her open palm. "And what better backup than-..."
Her statement faded into oblivion as she used all of her strength to fling the large doors to the library open.
Blake, who was inside reading, jumped up with a shriek before she quickly shoved the unmarked book that she had been reading under a bookshelf, standing up quickly with a blush tinting her cheeks. "Ruby! What the heck?! Knock!"
"Hey Blake!" Ruby greeted, racing over and grabbing the faunus hand without missing a beat, pulling her out of the library in a full sprint. "Stop reading your pervy books and follow me! We have a cat to save!"
"I-I wasn't reading anything per-..." Blake stopped when her mind finally registered Ruby's words. "Wait, what?!"
Pyrrha gently pressed an alcohol covered swab on a gash on Jaune's cheek, catching his head in her other hand when he flinched away. "You know Jaune, if you need help with this just let me know and I can-..."
"I'm fine Pyrrha!" Jaune countered, hissing in pain once more when Pyrrha pressed the swab against his face again. "I just need to get around it's defenses! If I do that it won't see me coming!"
"Oh c'mon Lady Killer, it's a dummy!" Yang, who was sitting on the sidelines watching Jaune train against the newly dubbed 'dummy of death'. "If you didn't get it from the front, how the heck're you gonna get it if you hit it in the butt?"
"Oh you would know..." Jaune muttered without even thinking, only realizing his mistake when he saw a flash of yellow rushing towards him.
"What was that?!" Yang growled as she picked up Jaune by his collar, baring her teeth to the terrified paladin.
Jaune let out a high pitched squeal of horror as Yang began to shake him around violently.
"Yang! Wait! Don't hurt him, he didn't mean it!" Pyrrha cried as she held her hands out towards Jaune, ready to catch him in her arms should Yang decide to try to throw Jaune.
"Yeah! Yeah, totally! I was only joking so put me down!" Jaune cried loudly, his legs dangling below him like noodles as the brawler continued to shake him around like a rag doll. "Pretty please! Ow! Please, I'm sorry!"
Yang held the knight in the air for a few more seconds, staring him down before she rolled her eyes and dropped Jaune, who scurried behind Pyrrha who gave him a soft reassuring pat on the head.
Suddenly, before Jaune had even crawled out from behind his Pyrrha shield, the door to the training hall burst open, revealing an excited Ruby and a confused looking Blake.
"It's questing time!"
"157... 158... 159..." Ravarth muttered as he sipped on a small mug of hot tea, watching as Weiss went through the gauntlet of pushups, desperately working through the Worgen's special 'training regiment'. Also known to most men under his control as the 'I want to see you suffer' game. "Speed it up Priss, you still got another 141 to go."
"Why are you such a freakin' sadist?!" Weiss cried as she balanced herself on shaky arms, the muscles in her body burning like fire.
"You can stop at any time if you want." Ravarth replied, taking another sip from his mug.
"Really?... You mean it?..." Weiss smiled hopefully, bringing herself to her knees.
"Aye, I heard the men's barracks needs a good scrubbing anyway." Ravarth chuckled as he held up a small light blue toothbrush, tossing it on the ground in front of Weiss.
"I-is that my toothbrush?..."
"No. That's your scrubber." Ravarth yawned, before using his claws to dig a piece of leftover food from between his teeth, flicking it to the ground. "Get to work. You don't want to still be working when they get back from a day long hike. Bastards stink like a farm."
Weiss fell face first onto the ground and groaned pathetically into the dirt, tears running down her cheeks.
A few moments later, the gathered group of Beacon students walked up to the two, this time with Yang in the lead.
"Hey, big mean and fluffy, mind if we grab Weiss off ya for a bit?" The blonde asked, jabbing a thumb in the weeping heiress' direction.
"No! He doesn't mind! Not at all!" Weiss cried before Ravarth could rsponse, rushing over to embrace Yang in a death hold, terrified the Knight-Lieutenant would make her actually go and clean the barracks.
"Go. She's earned some rest I suppose." Ravarth chuckled, taking one last drink before he jabbed a claw at Weiss. "But don't think I'll forget you still owe me 141 push-ups Priss!"
The group gave the Worgen nods of understanding, all with smirks on their faes before they dragged Weiss, who was silently crying tears of joy, away to assist in their grand quest.
"Ok! Now that we're all together we can start searching for this cat!" Ruby exclaimed proudly, a bright smile on her face as she surveyed her rag-tag group of group members.
"O...kay... So where do we start sis?" Yang asked, causing Ruby to falter for a moment as the little reaper's eyes widened in realization.
"Oh! Uh... I kinda ran off before Anduin or Wrath could tell me..." She admitted as she rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. It wasn't her fault! He should have known the mention of freshly baked cookies would set her off!
A chorus of face palms echoed throughout the group.
"So we're looking for a cat that might be anywhere in the city?!" Jaune asked in exasperation, throwing his hands up into the air.
"Oh man up Vomit Boy!" Yang heartily laughed, giving the young paladin a hard slap on the back, causing him to stumble forwards, nearly falling flat on his face.
"Easy for you to say!" Jaune cried as he steadied himself before he suddenly found himself looking down the barrels of Ember Celica.
"What?!"
"Sorry, Sir!-... I mean Ma'am-... I mean sir, ma'am, sir..." Jaune whined pathetically before he slightered back in his hiding place behind Pyrrha once again, who merely laughed good-naturedly before patting Jaune on the head again.
"C'mon Blake, you're a cat, where would you go?" Yang asked once she lowered her weapons, turning to her faunus teammate who bit her lip in thought.
"Well it's a pretty nice day out, and it's early afternoon, so I'd probably want to lounge in the sun for a bit before I-..." Blake soon trailed off into silence and blushed when she realized exactly what she was saying in front of her friends. "I mean, Uh... Hey!"
Yang quickly took the opportunity to start laughing at Blake, who did her very best to become as small as possible without actually physically curling up into a ball.
"The sun... The sun... Where's a good place to lounge around in the-..." Ruby trailed off as she shot a hand in the air, exclaiming triumphantly, "I've got it!"
"Ruby I don't think this is what Blake meant!" Weiss cried as she stared down at the courtyard of the castle so far below.
Somehow Ruby had gotten it into her head that the cat would no doubt be hiding up on the roof, which of course led to her taking a death climb on top of what was possibly the tallest structure in the city in search of the animal.
Yang of course was quick to follow her sister onto the roof, along with Weiss, although the only reason that Weiss had followed her leader up onto the roof was because Ruby had threatened to return the heiress to Ravarth if she did not cooperate.
"Pssh, of course she did!" Ruby replied as she shuffled along the side of the roof, scanning the areas she could see for any sign of the cat. "The top of the castle is the best place to see the sun after all!"
"Are you just completely out of your mind?!" Weiss cried as she clung desperately to a flagpole.
"Hey, as much as I love listening to you two argue, could we maybe look for this stupid cat so we can get down?!" Yang, who was also clinging to a small protrusion in the stone, reprimanded the two. "The others aren't even coming up! Don't you think that's a sign we shouldn't be doing this?!"
"Eh, we're good."
"Did you hit your head this morning or something?" Weiss hissed.
"...Maybe..."
Weiss would have pinched the bridge of her nose if she was not holding on for dear life, and so settled with rolling her eyes disapprovingly at her young team leader, who only gave her a toothy grin in response.
"So should I ask what you're all doing, or would it be better to live in blissful ignorance?" A voice suddenly asked from just above the huntresses, causing them to glance up.
There, leaning on a railing looking down at them, was Varimas, his expression unreadable due to the mask that, as always, adorned his face.
"Oh hey Var! We're looking for a cat!" Yang explained, causing the warlock to tilt his head.
"The cat? I saw her in the library a while ago."
"No! Not that cat!" Ruby vigorously shook her head, taking another look around in hopes that her target had surfaced in the time that Varimas had distracted them all. "Like, a kitty cat!"
"Ah... And why would a cat be on the roof?" The elf asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
"The sun!"
"Right... Have you tried the market? I've seen a few animals gather over there when the suns out." Varimas offered before he backed away from the ledge, muttering something about Ruby needing to be force fed a large amount of sedatives.
"Oh! Good idea!" Ruby pumped both her fists into the air excitedly, issuing her new orders to her group. "To the mark-... Woah!"
"RUBY!"
Ruby felt herself suddenly falling through the air as she lost her balance, the ground approaching at a rapid rate, too rapid to possibly recover from.
Thankfully her landing was a soft one. For her at least. Jaune unfortunately was not so lucky.
"I'm good!" Ruby called up to her teammates, hopping off of the half conscious Jaune with a small nod of appreciation, skipping towards the market without missing a beat.
"This quest is going to kill us all..." Weiss muttered as she watched her leader shake off her near death fall as if nothing had happened.
"Or at least Jaune..." Yang agreed.
"Anything?" Ruby asked as she stuck her head out of the tree she was searching.
"Nothing over here, what about you Blake?" Yang asked as she strolled out of the weapons shop.
"Nope... Just rats..." Blake muttered as she moved away a small crate, only to freeze when she came face to face with an extremely short, pink haired man dressed in flamboyant blue and yellow robes, who looked none to happy at being found. "And... Little people?..."
"How dare you! I am Thorix Sparkblast! Engineer of the Grand Alliance, and you will show me the proper respect!" The tiny man exclaimed with a tone rather unbecoming of someone of his stature. "Bow before my might!"
"Aw! You're right, it's a little person!" Yang cooed as she ran over, ducking down so that she could take a closer look at the man.
"Fear me!" The tiny man screeched before his eyes practically popped out of his head when he suddenly felt himself being lifted into the air. "I said-.. Hey, wait! What are you doing?! Stop that!"
Yang chuckled as she lifted the small man up staring at him with a smile. "Think it might know where this cat is?"
"That's it!" The tiny man snapped, turning his head over to one of the many winding alleyways. "Guards! GUARDS! Arrest these cretins!"
"Oh crap..." Yang dropped the tiny man without a moments hesitation, bolting in the other direction before the man had even hit the ground. "Run!"
The rest of team RWBY, Jaune, and Pyrrha all quickly sprinted away as a small group of guards ran up, vehemently ordering them to stop as they sprinted after them with weapons drawn.
"Okay... I'm done." Yang gasped as she leaned against the large tree in the Stormwind Castle garden. "I have no freakin' idea where this cat could be, and I think Jaune's running out of aura."
"They shot me in the butt!" Jaune whined as Pyrrha reached behind the paladin and pulled the arrow out of his posterior, the Light healing his wounds before any blood could seep from the wound.
"Well that's what you get when you fall 'behind'!" Yang snickered softly at her own pun, sitting down on the grass as the rest of the group stared at her, unamused.
Jaune only whimpered in response as Pyrrha began petting his back as usual.
"Great... So what're we gonna do now?" Ruby sighed as she kicked a small pebble into the bushes, the look of disappointment clear on her face.
"I hate to say it, but I think you might have to ask Anduin to give you a different quest." Blake muttered, crossing her arms. "Obviously this one is too tough for us."
"Yeah, I guess..." Ruby admitted gloomily, sulking off towards the door, prepared to search for Anduin.
But just before she left the garden a sound suddenly caused her to freeze in place, a shiver going up her spine.
"...Mew..."
Everyone in the immediate area also froze in place when that sound echoed through the gardens, though Ruby was the first to actually voice her suspicions. "Did you guys hear that or am I going crazy?..."
"Depends; what'd you hear?" Jaune asked, somehow not believing what he was hearing himself.
"...Mew..."
"That!"
"I think it came from over there!..." Blake said as she pointed over to a small clump of bushes near the edge of the garden.
The group all snuck over to the clump of bushes as quickly and quietly as they possibly could, before taking a peak over the bushes only to see the very cat that they had been searching nearly all day for lounging around on the grass, not a care in the world.
"Oh holy frickin' crap..." Yang muttered as she stared at the little ball of fur in disbelief.
"It's been here the entire time..." Blake continued for her friend, her ear a drooping when it slowly occurred to her how much reading time she had missed out on!
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Carcharoth lazily strolled into the miniature garden, presumably in search of somewhere to sleep. Almost like a homing beacon, the demon soon began plodding over to the spot where the cat was currently sleeping, though he seemed unaware of the feline's presence.
"Oh... Oh no... Oh no, oh no, oh noooo..." Yang mutterred as she watched Varimas' felhunter slowly make it's way over towards the clearing in the bushes.
"Should we stop him?" Weiss asked, slowly beginning to reach for a rock to chuck at the dog-like demon before it could draw any closer, only for her hand to be caught by Ruby's, causing her to drop the rock on Jaune's foot.
He had to bite his lip to silence the scream that begged to rush from his lips.
"No! He's too close to the cat! We might scare it away!" Ruby countered.
Unfortunately any semblance of subtly was thrown out the window when the cat lifted it's head up, noticing Carcharoth drawing towards it.
It gave the large demon a small innocent meow before walks over to the Felhunter, rubbing it's tiny body against the demon's leg, prompting the demon to rub it's snout against the cat's back.
"Awwww..." A few girls in the group, and Jaune, cooed when they saw the display of affection playing out before them.
Just as the group began to relax however, Carcharoth suddenly began to open his massive jaws, the rows of razor sharp teeth coming into view as it rose it's head over the form of the cat.
"Hey, wait a sec, what's he do-..."
SNAP
"Keep his jaw open Wrath, I don't feel like taking a trip to the healers today..." Varimas muttered as he fished down his demon's throat in search of the cat, which would hopefully still be alive.
"Yeah, yeah, just get the damn cat out already." Wrath, who was holding Carcharoth's jaws open, muttered. He knew this was going to happen. Why had he not just made Ruby run laps or something? It would have at least ended in less destruction. Possibly anyway.
"It was horrible... He just gobbled the poor kitty up!... One bite!..." Ruby sobbed into Anduin's shoulder as the prince held the girl, giving her back a comforting rub as he watched the two elves work. "No cookies were worth that!"
"Don't worry Ruby, Varimas and Wrath will have the cat back out soon." He assured, silently praying that it would not be half digested when they finally did pull it out.
"I still can't believe you were able to break 3 different laws looking for a Cat..." Ravarth muttered as he tightened his grip on a struggling Weiss, who he had flung over his shoulder. "Priss'll be paying for those crimes with a hundred extra pushups each."
"No! Please! It was all Ruby's fault! Not me!" Weiss begged, though it quite clearly fell on deff ears. "Punish her! Not me! I can't take any more pushups!"
"Alright, I'm headed back to the barracks. Someone has some cleaning to do."
"Nooo!..." Weiss sobbed as Ravarth silently carried her away.
"There!... Finally..." Varimas exclaimed as he pulled the soaked cat from Carcharoth's jaw, still shivering in terror from it's experience. Not wanting to hold onto the wet feline for any longer than he had to he quickly held out the cat towards Ruby. "Here, take it."
"Thanks..." Ruby sniffled as she accepted the cat before glancing up at the warlock with tear blurred eyes. "Why'd he do that anyways?... The cat was only being nice to him..."
"Oh, Carcharoth's always had this 'thing' about cats. He just likes the taste of them for one reason or another. We really aren't sure why." Varimas explained with a nonchalant shrug.
Blake glanced over worriedly at Carcharoth, only to let out an involuntary whimper when she saw the rows of sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight as he stared at her.
And then he ran his long tongue along his lips, never breaking his line of sight on the faunus.
She was out of the gardens in an instant.