After a rather uncomfortable dinner in the Beacon cafeteria, Ruby, Pyrrha, and Blake set out into town to visit the arcade. Ruby was happily engaging both of her dates in conversation, not really noticing that they didn't actually speak a word to each other.
Blake was first through the doors, immediately heading for the DDR machine. "Hey, Ruby, want to play this first?"
"Sure, Blakey!" the brunette chirped.
Pyrrha stood by with her arms crossed. She carefully kept the scowl from her face that she could feel trying to escape as she watched the two of them perform. Though Ruby was able to hold her own fairly well, the raven-haired girl's natural agility gave her an advantage, and she was declared victorious.
"Whew!" Ruby laughed, staggering off to the side. "Okay, Pyrrha, you get to take on the winner!"
How hard could this be? the redhead thought as she stepped up to take Ruby's place. She noted Blake's smirk out of the corner of her eye, and steeled herself for the impending battle.
Soon after the dance number began, Pyrrha belatedly realized that Blake had been holding back.
The Cat Faunus nailed every step, even the most complicated ones. Pyrrha struggled to keep up, but she was hopelessly left behind as Blake was once again declared the winner, in fact breaking the current record on the machine.
"Yay, Blakey!" Ruby shouted, jumping over to give her teammate a big hug.
Pyrrha looked down at her feet, discouraged until she felt a pair of small but strong arms encircle her waist. "And you were awesome too, Pyrrha! I didn't know you could dance that well!"
The redhead chuckled halfheartedly. "Well, it is not something I have the time to do very often… What game would you like to try next, Ruby?"
"Hmm… how about…" Ruby looked around the busy room, her eyes glowing excitedly. "Oh! Let's do the shooter game!"
Blake and Pyrrha followed in her wake, the former still wearing a bit of a contented smirk. The latter, meanwhile, was resolving to wipe that particular smirk off of her face.
Ruby grabbed hold of Pyrrha once they arrived at the neon-green game cabinet, thrusting an orange cord-tethered gun into her hands. "Alright! Let's kill us some zombies!"
Pyrrha quickly got the hang of the game, scoring head shot after head shot as undead gore was splattered across the screen. Between her and Ruby, they managed to take down each boss with ease.
Meanwhile, Blake looked on, her smirk having disappeared to be replaced by her usual neutral mask that was right now covering up her concern.
Eventually the game ended, Pyrrha having eked out a slightly better score than her date. "Nice!" Ruby cheered. "Okay, your turn Blakey!"
The Cat Faunus stepped forward and accepted her weapon with the solemnity of a gladiator girding herself for combat. She hefted it, sighting down the barrel and adjusting her stance until she gave a confident nod.
"Ready?" Pyrrha asked, the corner of her mouth quirked up in a slight smile.
"Ready," Blake confirmed, the words being the first they'd actually addressed to each other that evening.
And then the competition was on. It didn't take long for Blake to realize that, despite her skill with handheld firearms, Pyrrha was by far the better marksman.
I use Gambol Shroud as a pistol, hers is a rifle! How can she be beating me this badly?
There was no denying the end tally, however. While she'd come close to Ruby's previous number of points, Pyrrha had managed to outdo herself and place on the list of top scores.
"Wow, Pyrrha, you are such an amazing shot!" Ruby burbled, wrapping her arms around the much taller girl's waist.
Blake thrust her pistol into the holster irritably, though she was slightly cheered up by Ruby's subsequent hug. "And you were great too, Blakey! Really gave those zombies a run!"
"Thanks, Ruby," she murmured, blushing from the second hug she'd gotten already that evening. Her face stilled once she noticed the smirk that now graced Pyrrha's face, before settling into a mask of resolve.
"Hey, the air hockey table is open!" Ruby declared excitedly. "C'mon guys, you two play first this time!"
Pyrrha and Blake faced off, paddles held determinedly, as Ruby cheered them on equally from the sidelines. Amazon Warrior and Cat Ninja looked at each other with determined glares, poised and ready for the drop of the hockey puck.
Without warning, the machine spat out the flat disk, sending it careening towards Blake first. She shot her paddle out, striking it with a glancing blow that made it ricochet off of the walls. Pyrrha intercepted it and returned it with force, straight at Blake.
The game went back and forth, each girl battling for dominance. Blake scored first, but was immediately answered with one from Pyrrha. The scores remained even right up until the match point.
Pyrrha received the puck next, but a finger on the hand holding her paddle brushed it and slowed it down.
"Oops," she murmured.
Blake blinked uncertainly, unsure as to what the protocol was for such an occurrence, but Pyrrha simply pushed the metal puck towards her gently.
Not willing to let an advantage go to waste, Blake hammered it back at the redhead, who adroitly sent it back again, bouncing off of the walls.
The raven-haired girl lined up her block carefully… only to have the puck inexplicably take the last bounce at an angle that shouldn't have been possible. It flew past her defence and into the goal.
"Yay, Pyrrha!" Ruby exclaimed, giving out her now-customary post-game hug.
Blake stared down at the table incredulously. How did that… waitaminute… metal… puck…
She glanced up and into the once again smirking visage of her opponent, internally seething as Ruby gave her another hug as well.
This means war.
o o o
The night progressed, as did the two girls' rivalry, becoming more and more combative as they found new ways to test each other's mettle. Combat games, skee ball, cooperative dungeon slaying… Each one was quickly mastered, though the two of them were fairly well matched as far as number of wins.
It was only after they'd somehow managed to tie in the latest round of skeeball that the pair realized Ruby was no longer there and giving them hugs after their game.
"How long has she been gone?" Pyrrha asked worriedly.
"I… I don't know," Blake admitted, chagrined. "I think the last hug I got was… Dungeon Masters?"
"Oh, no…" Pyrrha breathed. "That was a couple of games ago…"
They roamed the arcade, calling out Ruby's name to no avail. Eventually they wandered outside, peering out into the dark.
"Do you… think she went home?" Blake asked hesitantly.
Pyrrha was about to reply when the Faunus held up her hand, senses straining. She could hear, ever so faintly…
A girl crying.
Her heart fell straight into her boots as she shot Pyrrha a worried glance. Together the two of them rounded the corner of the building to find the brunette sitting in the middle of a bench, her cloak wrapped around herself with the hood pulled up.
Pyrrha and Blake slowly walked over and sat on either side of her, unsure of what to say.
The brunette sniffled, wiping her face with the hem of her cloak. "I thought this was gonna be an even better date than the ones yesterday," she whispered brokenly. "I mean, having the two of you together would mean twice as fun, right?"
The other two girls shared a guilty look. "Um," Blake began. "We might have gotten a bit…"
"...Competitive," Pyrrha finished quietly. "We're sorry, Ruby."
"Yeah, we are," Blake agreed. With unspoken consent, the two of them leaned in and wrapped their arms around the smaller girl.
They sat like that for a while, quietly staring out into the dark as Ruby's sniffles died down.
"I don't want you guys to fight," Ruby finally murmured. "I mean, if it means that you're gonna be at each other's throats, then I just don't want to do this at all, okay? We can just go back to… to what we had before."
Pyrrha and Blake looked at each other once more, even further guilt etched across both of their faces.
"But I really don't wanna go back to the way it was before," Ruby continued. "I really, really like both of you, and I have lots of fun with you... " She sighed despondently. "This was a bad idea. Maybe… maybe we should just do separate dates again."
"Do you truly want to do that?" Pyrrha murmured. "Er, go on individual dates?"
"Not really," the brunette mumbled. "But I don't want you guys to fight, either."
"I think…" Blake began cautiously. "Maybe we could agree to a truce?"
"Definitely," Pyrrha replied, her emerald eyes shining with the knowledge of how much their actions had hurt Ruby. "Because, in the end, your happiness is what is important, Ruby."
"And I don't want to go back to how things were before, either," Blake added solemnly.
"Neither do I," Pyrrha agreed.
Ruby pulled the hood of her cloak back, her gaze switching between the two of them with hope shining in her silver orbs. "You mean that? Really?"
"Yes, really," Pyrrha chuckled.
"You know," Blake mused playfully. "I seem to remember a racing game in the back with a number of linked seats. We could all play at once."
"Yay!" Ruby cheered, quickly reverting to her normally effervescent self again. "Let's go, then!"
She grabbed both girls by the hand, not relinquishing her hold on them as they jogged back into the arcade.
Blake shared a tentative smile with Pyrrha, as they both reflected on the knowledge that they'd be willing to go far to keep Ruby this happy.
A/N: Bad Blake and Pyrrha, you made Ruby cry! Sad Ruby is sad. But now happy again, so yay! Bit of a longer chapter this time, but like I mentioned, they'll be inconsistent like that. At first I wasn't entirely sure what such a tri ship would even be called (Ladybug Cereal?), but then the esteemed Jefardi mentioned that it's known as Purruby. And that is all sorts of adorable. If anyone knows of artwork depicting the three, whose artist might not object to my request use of said work, then I could change the cover picture to something relevant! Please PM me if you know of such treasures! (My search skills on DA are sadly lacking…)
Once again, my heartfelt thanks for all the amazing follows and reviews on here! Sweet mother of Oum this thing continues to blow up, less than 24 hours and now I have 54 followers and 11 reviews?! Hope the tale continues to entertain!
growlscout: Yeah, it kinda came to a head here between the three of them. We'll see how long the truce lasts… You make an excellent point about how Taiyang's past relationships might have been formative in how Ruby views relationships of her own.
Jefardi: I swear I'm not gonna squee every time I see a review from you. Well, maybe after the first few… Oh, who am I kidding, I'm just flattered you're enjoying the tale! Squees will be heard and they shall be plentiful.
Boarador: Glad to see you aboard the crack ship!
TacoKing23: Heya Taco! And yes, Ruby is indeed da playa, lol.
MadeInBestKorea: Hmmm… I should probably address this here. I don't really want to turn this into smut, for a few reasons. Yes I can write smut, I'm decent enough at it and I actually enjoy it, BUT, if I'm going to do so in a story I want to be upfront about it from the start. Plus, I'm hesitant now introducing such on FF since I got ban-threatened back when I was writing Firefly fanfiction, so it always makes me a little leary to get too descriptive. Perhaps I might do what I did with Pearls on a String and write a companion over on AO3 where they don't give a crap what you put in there so long as you warn accordingly. HOWEVER, that is not to say things might not heat up in this story. I just like giving enough details to leave the rest to your imagination.
Stay shiny!