"Why do you have so many posters of Neo?" Jaune asked. "She wasn't exactly a nice person."
"And of my sister?" Weiss asked, pulling up one of them to show Kay like a mother holding up a prepubescent boy's secret stash of Playboy. However, instead of the figure in the design presenting themselves in a risque manner, the poster portrayed Winter Schnee in an action pose with her sabres poised for battle.
"They were my favorite characters?" Kay answered, unsure how to deal with the younger Schnee girl's cold gaze. "I mean, I just really like how they looked and fought in the show, so I took to liking them pretty easily.
"And none of me?" Yang looked offended at the lack of small blonde figures that weren't Yang.
"I gave a lot of my Yang merch to a little cousin," Kay explained. "She was a huge fan of your character. So one of my birthday gifts to them was all of my Yang stuff."That answer seemed to satisfy the brawler before she tilted her head to get a better look at her younger sister. Ruby appeared from behind Kay and slowly trudged over to the rest of the group. Weiss joined the reaper's older sister in looking at Ruby with disappointment.
"You were supposed to keep him occupied while he went through the box," Yang reminded her, though there was no real heat behind it. "What happened?"
"Well I would have been fine if you guys just kept your mouths shut!" Ruby countered.
"She also started to run out of things to distract me with." Kay added.
"Hey!"
"Am I wrong?"
"N-no." Ruby deflated as she realized there was really nothing she could have done to prevent Kay from noticing the commotion. Her dejected expression was remedied as Kay made his way the box of memorabilia. When he returned to her, a small black figurine filled her vision. In the little plastic person's hands were a miniature Crescent Rose. The happy squeal seemed to alleviate any negativity from the girl as she excitedly tossed herself up in the air and caught it. She looked over the tiny version of herself with a giddy laugh. "Ooh! They even got the gears on Crescent Rose right! My baby!"
"That was effective." Yang said, nodding in approval. Kay shrugged in response.
"How come you only have one figure of me?" Jaune asked.
"I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of your character in the show." Kay answered. Jaune opened his mouth to answer before reconsidering it, then nodded to show that he understood.
"That's fair," the swordsman said, smiling sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head. "I know I definitely wasn't the best person when I started Beacon."
"I'll say," Weiss mumbled, though a smile and playful eyeroll showed that she meant no harm.
"Granted, you were all children at the time." Ozpin commented, taking over Oscar for the moment.
"You definitely weren't my favorite," Kay said to the wizard. "I straight up despised you."
"Not without reason, I'm sure." Ozpin replied, nodding in understanding.
"Trust me, I don't dislike anyone without a reason." Kay assured him. The writer turned back to the rest of the group. "So what's with the decision to send Ruby to distract me?"
"It was Blake's idea!" Nora sold out her friend. The faunus in question tried to think of an explanation before pointing at Yang unashamed.
"I told Yang that you might have had merchandise of us!" Yang stood up, mouth agape at Blake's retort. "She told Ruby to distract you so we could search for the box in your closet!"
"Blake!" Yang complained. "You dirty little teacher's pet!"
"You know," Kay cut in loudly, catching everyone's attention. "You could have just asked to see it."
"We thought you might have been embarrassed to show such fanaticism," Weiss replied. "Like Blake with her own books."
"You guys at least deserve to see how you're being portrayed," Kay countered. "Plus, they're from a long while ago. They're really just a bunch of toys and posters I used to have my room while I grew up."
"Well, I think a valuable lesson has been learned here," Ozpin said, standing by Kay's side. "I believe an apology is in order."
"Sorry Kay." The young men and women in his living room said in unison. They began to slowly rise and replace the items back in the box.
"Whoa," the single word from Kay froze the clean-up process. "I didn't say to put them away. You can still look at them." Speaking of looking through things, Kay looked at Blake. "Blake, where is the book I gave you?"
"Oh, she passed it around to me and Ozpin," Weiss explained. "Ruby read a bit of it too, though I must admit I was rather enthralled in the writing."
"Yeah yeah, you can suck up to Kay later." Yang interrupted, still annoyed at Blake's selling her out. She turned back to Kay with a smile and asked, "Any plans for dinner?"
"That's the other thing I wanted to talk about." Kay answered. "I can't just eat delivery every day while you guys are here. I have to cook something somewhat healthy."
"So what does that mean?" Weiss asked.
"Ren," Kay got the young ninja's attention. "You're supposedly helping me keep the place in condition. How's the fridge situation looking?"
"Honestly, not very great." Ren answered. Last he had looked, the refrigerator had only a few eggs, a half-empty carton of orange juice, and some cheese left it in. No meats or veggies to speak of.
"That's right." Kay said. "It's time for a grocery run."
. . . . .
Ren, Yang, Jaune, and Ruby were into the passenger seats of the small sedan as Kay drove. Ren stared at the passing scenery from the front seat as music softly played. Well, however softly Kay's current choice in music could be played. Yang rocked her head to the beat of the metal that blared from the speakers by her feet. Ruby didn't seem to mind the music, though she was having trouble understanding what Jaune was talking about. She watched as Kay quickly lowered the volume on the radio.
Sorry Jaune," Kay said, replacing both hands on the steering wheel. "You were saying?"
"You said you got all of that stuff when you were younger," the blonde swordsman repeated his question. "How old are you now?"
"I'm 27," Kay answered. "I was in high school and college when RWBY had its run."
"What?" Ruby asked, distracted from her own mental musings.
"The show," Yang clarified. "Named after the team, not just you."
"Gotcha."
"So yeah, I was about 16 when I first started getting into the show." Kay finished answering.
"Cool." Was Jaune's simple response. More idle chatter filled the car for the rest of the ride until they reached a large store that read "Glen Plains Organic Market" in big, green block letters. The store was rather large, taking up an entire suburban block. The parking lot across the street was luckily rather sparse, allowing for quick parking.
"So what are we looking for, Kay?" Yang asked as Ruby ran over to get a nearby grocery cart.
"Gonna get a bunch of meats and vegetables," Kay listed off the top of his head. "Maybe some snacks if anything. Ren, any special requests?"
"A lot of pancake mix," Ren answered, remembering Nora. "Milk, orange juice, and more tea as well."
Kay led the group through the automatic sliding doors of the large grocery store. Kay immediately guided them through one of the aisles straight ahead of them. Ren and Jaune split from the group to retrieve two boxes of pancake mix and bottles of syrup, as well as other breakfast items. Meanwhile, the two sisters followed the older man in the meat aisle of the store.
"Been meaning to ask," Kay said, picking up several yellow packages of beef, pork, and chicken of varying cuts into the cart. Ruby looked up to him, waiting for him to continue. "You guys don't seem to have much of a culture shock so far. How different is my world from yours?"
"About the same," Yang answered for her. "Maybe similar in tech to the outer settlements."
"It definitely feels like life back on Patch," Ruby added. "Quiet and peaceful. You said you used to live in the city?"
"Yeah, down south from here," Kay replied. "Went there for college and moved up here to get away from it all."
"Get away from what?" Ruby asked, her innocent silver eyes peering into Kay's tired brown.
"Just… the busy bustle of the city." Kay shrugged, placing a third pack of chicken wings in the cart. Ruby continued to stare a Kay after his answer, as though she didn't believe him. Ren and Jaune rounded the corner with several boxes of cereal and pancake mix, as well as milk and tea packets. "Thanks guys. Let's get to the produce aisle." Kay took a backseat to it all as he let Ren take care of choosing the vegetable and fruit groceries. Ruby was quite upset at the amount of healthy vegetables they were choosing, but that was quickly sated as Kay let her take two packs of cookies on their way to checkout.
The rest of the evening was a rather calm affair as Kay cooked the first home-cooked meal for them since their arrival; fried chicken wings and sauteed spinach with rice. Looking around the house once more, Kay felt a feeling of warmth as the scene of the young friends watched the movie Ren had chosen that night, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Kay slowly made his way around, back to his office before returning to his work once more. Tomorrow was Saturday. It would be quite busy.
. . . . .
"Specialist Schnee Log Report Number Eight," Winter paced as she recorded yet another audio log to be saved and sent to Ironwood during her mission. The bags around her eyes were visible to anyone who passed her by in the last few days. She had been working tirelessly observing the extensive tests on Dust and Glyphs that may have sent her sister and her friends off. Tonight, however, she dictated with a renewed determination and a small smile. "Progress has been made. The recorded quantity of Burn, Spark, and the newly named, purple Grimmdark Dust combined with the force of a Gravity Glyph has resulted in the test subjects achieving left before imploding. The living test subjects did not implode, rather they shot straight up before falling down to the same exact spot. Obviously, this didn't happen to our mission Hunters." Winter paused as she looked up to the pulsing statue of Salem and the broken Relics.
"There must be a connection with the light from the Relics." Winter muttered. "General, I understand that all contact with the frozen Salem is prohibited, but I must propose that I perform the experiment close to her. It may just give us a look into where Weiss and Ozpin went."
Kariotic here! Sorry for the short update this time around, been kept busy by real life stuff. Will definitely try to make sure the next chapter(s) is filled with some exciting stuff. Should be fun. Hope you enjoyed reading!