We see a glum Ruby resting her head on her hand and staring into the distance before she was startled by someone slamming their palms on the table she was at.
"I need you to pick a tablecloth." Weiss said, smiling as she slid two squares over to Ruby, both seeming to be similar shades of white.
"Aren't they both the same?" Ruby asked, confused.
Weiss sighed in frustration. "I don't even know why I asked!" She huffed, walking away.
Weiss walked out of the scene as Yang came in carrying a massive sound speaker on her shoulder, which bounced her sister and the table she was moping on again to jump in the air when she dropped it on the ground. Yang brushed her hands as she approached Ruby "So, have you picked out a dress yet?" She asked.
"What's the point? Who cares about the dance if Blake isn't going?" Ruby asked.
"Oh, don't worry; she's going." Yang asked.
"And so are you." Weiss said, walking up to Ruby. Jaune then walked into the room, looking rather confident and holding a white rose. seeing Weiss and starting to walk towards her. "Because I will be taking you to the dance, Ruby Rose!" Weiss said authoritatively. Jaune was shocked at this, before dropping the rose and walking back where he came from.
"It'll be hard to notice her, though, when all eyes will be on me." Bayonetta said sassily as she moved some tables around.
"I don't think so, sis. All the guys and most the girls will be too busy drooling over me." Yang said.
"Is that a challenge?" Bayonetta asked, walking up and leaning in with a glare.
"It is and it's on!" Yang said, leaning in and matching her twin's glare, before looking over off-screen, exasperated. "Weiss! I thought we agreed: No doilies!" She said.
Weiss walked up to Yang, pointing in her face. "If I don't get doilies, you don't get fog machines!" She countered.
"Oh, come on, sis! You can't deny us the awesomeness of fog machines!" Dante said, setting up a stage, some lights and fire machines for a performance he'd give later.
"I can and I will if I don't get my doilies. We still need to let the people know we have some class." She insisted.
The girls were interrupted by the sound of doors opening. "Your dance is gonna have fog machines?" Neptune asked, walking in with Sun.
"We were thinking about it..." Weiss said.
"That's pretty cool." Neptune said.
"You ladies all excited for dress-up?" Sun asked, acting suave to Weiss' ire.
"Pfft... Yeah, right!" Ruby said.
"Laugh all you want. I'll be turning heads tomorrow night!" Yang said.
"Turning them away from you and towards me!" Bayonetta taunted.
"Oh, that's it!" Yang said, tackling her twin, the two having a catfight similar to the one Ruby and Yang had on their first night at Beacon.
"Shouldn't we break this up?" Ryu asked.
"Not on your life!" Dante said, watching eagerly.
Weiss rolled her eyes at her brother's antics, before addressing Sun and Neptune. "What are you two wearing?"
"Uuhhh... this?" Sun said unsurely, gesturing to his current shirtless outfit as everyone looked at him as if to say "really?".
"Ignore him for he knows not what he says." Neptune said, holding a hand in front of his friend's face.
"Hey, I may have moved to Mistral, but I grew up in Vacuo. It's not exactly a shirt-and-tie kind of place." Sun said as he knocked Neptune's hand away.
"Yeah, we noticed." Yang said, mirroring Ruby's and Weiss' looks of being told something extremely obvious
Sun rubbed the back of his head as he prepared to ask. "Soooo... what does Blake think of all this? She still being all, y'know... Blake-y?" He asked.
"Obviously." Weiss said, turning and crossing her arms in disapproval.
"She's obsessed with this mission. Obsessions are never an easy thing to just get over. Trust me. I know very well." Ryu said.
"I still can't think of a way to change her mind." Ruby said.
"Guys." Yang said, everyone looking at her as she started walking out. "Trust me; Blake will be at the dance tomorrow." She said, leaving.
"I should go with her, just so she doesn't make things worse." Bayonetta said.
The Faunus herself was sitting at one of the library tables with a holographic screen in front of her. She was obviously more sleep-deprived than ever, barely focusing on what she's seeing... until a small, bright red light appeared on the screen. Moving up and down, Blake's eyes followed it down to her hand, then disappeared entirely. She looked behind herself, obviously irritated, but no one walking among the tables was her culprit.
Turning back to the computer, she started typing on the beeping keyboard before the laser dot appeared on her hand briefly, prompting her to look around again and still finding no one. The red point showed up on the screen, moving around in circles until Blake scowled and pounded her fists on the table. She stood up from her chair and found the light on the floor, following it blindly through shelves of books until both the dot and its pursuer turned the corner, only for Blake to bump, shocked and shaken out of her more "animal" instincts, into...
Yang waved with her left hand as her right held the laser pointer. "He-lloooo!" She said in a sing-song voice.
"Hey, kitty cat." Bayonetta said.
"What are you...?" Blake asked.
"We need to talk." Yang said, grabbing Blake's arm. And with that, amid Blake's single cry of surprise, Yang whisked her partner out of the scene. Bayonetta was a little surprised at this, before becoming annoyed that she was left behind, following after them with a roll of her eyes.
Emerging from the steaming bathroom in nothing but a pink towel wrapped around his lower body, Ren sighed in contentedness and started walking away, only to be stopped by Jaune and Kratos walking past him. "Ren. You should join us for some training. Pyrrha is unavailable, so perhaps you could fill in for her. You could use work on your stamina, anyway." Kratos said.
"But I just showered. I don't want to get all sweaty and smelly again before the dance." He said.
"You can always shower again before the dance." Kratos suggested.
"Ren, trust me, it'll be easier on both of us if you go along with it." Jaune said, although he seemed to not want to train as much as Ren.
"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" He asked.
"No. Now we'll swing by your dorm so you can get dressed, then we'll head to the roof." Kratos said, grabbing Ren's arm. And with that, amid Ren's single cry of surprise, Kratos pulled Ren away, leaving his bottle of "Samurai Shampoo" to spin in the air before dropping to the ground.
Soon enough, the three were training on the roof, Ren adding a unique take on the training, as the two had to adapt from Pyrrha's style to his, his speedier martial arts style being vastly different from Pyrrha's more defensive style, allowing him to dodge their attacks with relative ease and catch them off-guard to land a few of his own, managing to knock Jaune down with a jumping/spinning rear kick, causing the blonde knight to fall flat on his back. "Okay! Okay that's enough!" Jaune said, waving his arms for them to stop, rolling onto his side, panting a little bit, but both of the two with him knew he had plenty more fight in him than that. He apparently wasn't willing to show it off, though. "I'm done for the night. This needs to be over." Jaune said.
"We've only been out here for 5 minutes. You know we always go for at least 20." Kratos said.
"Not tonight, though. I'm just not feeling it." Jaune said.
"Jaune, what is this about? You're not acting like yourself. You're normally excited to train, so you can improve and become a better huntsman." Ren said, concerned for his leader.
Jaune looked at him for a moment, before sighing. "It's Weiss. She asked Ruby to the dance. I'm head over heels for her, but she won't even give me a chance." He said.
Kratos was furious at this, grabbing Jaune, picking him up and slamming him against a wall, holding him roughly against it. "You need to stop obsessing over this one girl! Clearly she isn't even into you! You know who you should be focusing on? Someone who is into you! Pyrrha!" He snapped.
Jaune was shocked, first at Kratos' sudden lashing out, then at what he had just said. "Pyrrha... likes me? Like, more than a friend?" He asked.
"Is that really that much of a surprise? Think of all she's done for you, Jaune. She was interested in you from the first moment you met, she saved you from falling to your death in the Emerald Forest, unlocked your aura and has been training you since the first month of school. Why would she do all of those things if she didn't care about you?" Ren asked.
Jaune took in all this information in and with every example, he saw more and more how obvious it was that Pyrrha liked him and he felt awful that his friends had to spell it out for him in order for him to realize it. "How could I not see all this time that Pyrrha liked me? It's obvious and every time she tried to tell me or give me a hint, I was just oblivious or brushed her off... I've gotta go find her and say I'm sorry." He said.
Kratos nodded at this and let the boy down. "Go. And good luck." He said, Jaune taking off.
"That was pretty mature of you, Kratos. You're putting aside your disapproval of Jaune for Pyrrha." Ren said.
"Her happiness is more important than I feel. And I hate to say it, but Jaune is good for her." He said.
Jaune rushed around the school, looking for Pyrrha, before finding her on a balcony. "Pyrrha!" He called.
"Oh!" She said in shock, turning around to see who called to her. "Jaune!" She said, now even more surprised.
"Hey." He said. There was a moment of silence, before Jaune finally sighed. "Pyrrha, I'm sorry." He said.
"What? What for?" She asked.
"I've been trying to get Weiss to like me for so long, I never noticed how much you liked me and all the incredible things you've done for me. I haven't appreciated you nearly as much as I should have and for that, I'm sorry." He apologized.
Pyrrha was taken aback by this, before smiling and resisting the urge to cry tears of joy. "It's fine, Jaune. I'm just... So happy you're seeing how I feel. Hearing this is like a dream come true." She said.
He smiled and chuckled a bit at this. "So, do you have a date for the dance?" He asked.
"No. I've been blessed with incredible talents and opportunities. I'm constantly surrounded by love and praise, but when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place." She explained, turning back to Jaune. "Everyone assumes I'm too good for them. That I'm on a level they simply can't attain and Kratos has done everything in his power to reinforce that idea. It's become impossible to form any sort of meaningful relationship with people. That's what I like about you. When we met, you didn't even know my name. You treated me just like anyone else. And thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime. I guess, you're the kind of guy I wish I was here with. Someone who just saw me for me."She said.
"Well, then are you too good to go to the dance with me?" He asked, holding out his hand.
She smiled at this, walking up and taking his hand. "Not at all. I would love to join you." She said.
"Bayo, Yang, if you're going to tell me to stop, you may as well save your breaths." Blake said. Yang was sitting cross-legged on the central desk of the empty classroom they're in as Bayonetta leaned against the desk.
"I don't want you to stop; I want you to slow down." Yang explained.
"Exactly. You've been drifting in and out of sleep for a few days. What would happen if you did that in a fight?" Bayonetta asked.
Blake continuing to pace with arms crossed, still irritated. "I don't have the luxury to slow down. And I won't just fall asleep in the middle of battle." She snapped.
"Yes, you will. If you keep preventing yourself from sleeping and not eating enough, eventually, your body will shut itself down in order to recharge. And if that happens in front of an enemy, they'll pull the plug before you can recharge." Bayonetta said, visibly scaring Blake a bit, but she shook it off.
"I can keep myself going for as long as I need to. Like I said, I don't have the luxury to slow down.
"It's not a luxury; it's a necessity." Yang said.
"The 'necessity' is stopping Torchwick." Blake countered.
"It's pretty hard to stop someone when you can barely keep your eyes open." Bayonetta countered.
"Girls, we're going to stop him. Together with Team RWBY and Team SCRN. But first you have to sit down and listen to what I have to say." She said, looking at Blake at the end, patting the part of the desk across from her.
Blake looked away for a moment until she relented and draped her legs over the desk's edge. "Fine." She said.
"Ruby, Bayo and I grew up in Patch, an island off the coast of Vale. Our parents were Huntsmen. Our dad taught at Signal, and our mom took on missions around the kingdom. Her name was Summer Rose, and she was, like... Super-Mom: Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters. And then... one day she left for a mission and never came back." She said, looking down as she said this, Bayonetta doing the same, holding in a bit of a sob, Blake looking sorry for her friends. "It was tough. Ruby was really torn up, but... I think she was still too young to really get what was going on, y'know? Bayonetta was crushed and our dad just kind of... shut down. It wasn't long before we learned why. Summer wasn't the first love he lost; she was the second. The first... was our mom." She explained, pulling Bayonetta in a bit. Blake looked amazed at this information while Bayonetta flinched a bit.
"That woman gave us life, but Summer was our mom." Bayonetta explained. Blake pretty quickly pieced it together that while they lost Summer, their mother abandoned them.
"He wouldn't tell me everything, but I learned that the two of them had been on a team together with Summer and Qrow, and that she'd left us with him right after we was born. No one had seen her since." Yang explained.
"Why did she leave you?" She asked.
"Because she's a heartless woman that doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself." Bayonetta said with venom in her voice. It was obvious to Blake that Bayonetta clearly didn't like her mother, she could also see a bit of loneliness in her eyes. Only Bayonetta herself knew this, but in her last life, her mother loved her very much, but was taken for her, so for a mother to not want her and leave her was heartbreaking. It was the very first betrayal of her new life. And we all know Bayonetta does NOT take betrayal well.
Yang sighed, then turned to the chalkboard. "That question... Why?" She said, getting off the desk and walked to the chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk. "I didn't know an answer, but I was determined to find out. It was all I thought about. I would ask anyone I could about what they knew about her." She said.
As the reminiscent blonde started drawing on the board, the scene shifted to a flat-painted flashback of a young Yang, with orange bows holding her brunette pigtails, looking at the photo found in a smashed picture frame alongside a young Bayonetta, with her black hair in a ponytail, who glared at the frame. "Then, one day, I found something. What I thought was a clue that could lead me to answers, or maybe even my mother." She explained. The next shot showed Yang and Bayo walking down a long winding path through the towering trees shedding their leaves as Yang pulled a little creaking wagon right behind them, a little sister in a crimson hood sleeping soundly inside. "I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. Bayonetta warned me not to, but I guilted her into coming with us." She said, cringing a bit at that memory.
"It was my decision, Yang. Don't put that on yourself." Bayonetta said, putting a hand on her twin's shoulder.
Yang recovered and continued the story. "We must've walked for hours. I had cuts and bruises, Bayonetta fell and hit her head we were totally exhausted, but I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. When we finally got there, I could barely stand and Bayo wasn't much better, but I didn't care; we had made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes..." She said.
"A trio of Beowulves." Bayonetta explained as beastly red shapes glow from the darkness of the worn-down house the siblings had arrived at, while their younger selves looks petrified.
"There we were: A toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. I remember a claw being an inch away from my eyes. But, as luck would have it, Bayonetta unlocked our semblance and back us away, smashing one under the wagon before our uncle showed up just in time." Yang explained again.
As the Beowolves leapt into the air to devour their young prey, the familiar sound of a gun-scythe followed the sight of them all being cut into pieces by a caped warrior. His bird-haired silhouette faded away to present day, where Yang has just finished drawing a clockwork eye.
"I'd say it was more panic and adrenaline than luck." Bayonetta said.
"My stubbornness should've gotten us killed that night. And Bayonetta had to save me, the older sister. And Ruby, who we both promised to protect from danger. And I put them in that danger." Yang said.
"Yang... I'm sorry that happened to you, and I understand what you're trying to tell me, but this is different. I'm not a child, and this isn't just a search for answers! I can't just-" Blake started.
Still facing the board, Yang clenched her fists. "I told you: I'm not telling you to stop! I haven't! To this day, I still want to know what happened to my mother and why she left me." She said.
"And I'm still telling her it's a waste of time and effort that could be spent on better things." Bayonetta said with a smirk, to which Yang rolled her eyes.
"But I will never let that search control me. We're going to find the answers we're looking for, Blake. But if we destroy ourselves in the process, what good are we?" Yang finished, looking at Blake.
"She's right. We can do this together, but we can't do it if we can't even keep our eyes open, which you're clearly struggling to do." Bayonetta added as Blake's eyes were indeed fluttering rapidly, wanting to close, but Blake holding them open with whatever energy she had left.
"You don't understand! I'm the only one who can do this!" Blake said.
"No you're not. We could report this to pretty much any Huntsman or huntress and they'd deal with it as good as us, if not better!" Bayonetta countered.
"You're the one that doesn't understand!" Yang snapped at Blake, turning around sharply to reveal red eyes and the sound of flames. "If Roman Torchwick walked through that door, what would you do?"
"I'd fight him!" Blake snapped.
"You'd lose!" Yang snapped back, pushing Blake away.
"I can stop him!" Blake insisted, tiredly tried to do the same to Yang, but she didn't even budge.
"You can't even stop me!" Yang countered, pushing Blake again, knocking her to land on the desk.
"Hey, that's enough! One way we're definitely stopping anyone is by tearing each other apart!" Bayonetta snapped.
Yang, still angry-eyed, walked toward Blake as she got up, but then did the unexpected and embraced her in a hug, her eyes going back to their normal purple. Bayonetta also put an hand on Blake's shoulder.
"I'm not asking you to stop. Just please, get some rest." Yang pleaded, pulling back to look at her partner. "Not just for you, but for the people you care about." She said, stepping away and started walking past the startled Blake, who turned when she looked back over her shoulder. And if you feel like coming out tomorrow, I'll save you a dance." Yang said and winked down at Blake, and Blake stared at Yang as she left.
"You have friends, Blake. And your actions effect them as well, not just you. So don't effect them in the wrong way." Bayonetta said, following her sister. Blake took both of their words into consideration for a moment, before sighing heavily and walking away, leaving the all-seeing eye on the board.
We now see a large collection of white roses, one dropping outward, in a large vase behind Yang, who was now in a short white dress with black heels as she stood at a podium. The doors in front of her open and she flipped out upon seeing who walked in.
"Ooohh, you look beautiful!" She said happily as she saw Ruby, who groaned as she looked distressed in her red dress with black lace, belt, and pumps, Bayonetta helping her along as she tried to maintain her balance as she walked to the podium, much to her laughing sister's amusement.
"Don't I, though?" Bayonetta said, sexily running her hands down her body, now closed in a long black dress with large slits up both sides all the way up to her hips, her hair beautifully worn down instead of its normal beehive-like state.
Yang rolled her eyes at this. "I was talking about Ruby and you know it!" She said.
"On that, we can agree." Bayonetta nodded, looking at Ruby. "You look great, sis." She said.
"Thanks, but can we have a serious talk about how Weiss fights in these?" She asked, gesturing to the heels.
"I fight in heels. I just have guns on the back of them for a bit more stability." Bayonetta said.
Meanwhile outside, Sun was seen walking around and wearing a new black jacket, now closed up, with a white tie hung around his neck, which he proceeded to fight with before going inside. "Stupid... dumb... neck trap!" He grunted.
"I knew you'd look better in a tie." Blake said from off-screen.
Sun stopped his struggling and stared at the dark purple dress and bright blue bow worn by Blake, now looking like she traded her dark bags for violet eyeshadow, as she stepped forward and took him by the arm.
"Sooo, does this mean we're going... together?" Sun asked.
"Technically, I'm going Yang an I are going together with you." Blake explained.
Inside the ballroom, streamers were hung through glass chandeliers, pink and blue balloons were everywhere, and students in dark suits and bright dresses were stepping with each other to the music between the white-clothed tables. Blake was spun around by Yang before they curtsy to one another, and Sun came up and took his date's hand as Yang gave him a small glare as if to tell him to watch where he put his hangs. She went to hang with Ruby and Weiss, who was in a similar white dress as Yang's, in the back of the room, watching as Blake laughed and enjoyed herself before smiling at her team.
"I told you she would come." Yang said.
"Mission accomplished." Weiss said.
"Soooo, what do we do now?" Ruby turning to her teammates.
"Just have fun!" Yang said as she proceeded to walk away and do so.
"And you are coming with me." Weiss said, taking Ruby's hand and dragging her to the dance floor.
"Huh?! W-w-wait!" Ruby said, struggling to keep her footing as Weiss pulled her along. "Weiss, I really don't know how to dance!" Ruby said nervously.
Weiss rolled her eyes, although she still smiled. "You really are hopeless. You know that?" She asked.
Dante and Bayonetta then appeared beside them. "Come on, sis. That's no way to talk to your date." Dante teased, dressed in a very stylish suit.
"I can talk however I want, LITTLE brother." She said, giving Dante a turn to roll his eyes.
"Here, Ruby, just watch how I move." Bayonetta said as he her and Dante moved across the dance floor, preforming a flawless waltz, looking back at Ruby. "Now your turn." She said.
Ruby gulped, before looking down at her feet and stepping the same way Bayonetta did, managing to follow her footwork perfectly. "This... isn't so bad." She said.
"No. In fact." Weiss said, lifting Ruby's head up to look her in the eyes. "You're doing perfect." She said, smiling. Ruby was a bit surprised at this, before smiling back, the two continuing to dance like eternal lovers.
Yang was back behind the podium and smiled at the new arrivals. "You guys are just in time!" She said happily.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Mercury said as he and Emerald stepped in with their ballroom best on before the screen went black.