Made it!
Howdy folks, how's it going?
Here I am, with the newest update to Of Red Petals and Black Feathers. I am not going to lie, it's a bit on the short side, but that is mostly because it's setting up what's gonna happen next, as we begin to delve into the ending of the first Volume.
Also, normally wouldn't bother with this, but knowing that far as shippers are concerned, two people whose only major interaction is ten seconds of eye contact can be eligible to be soul mates, and what happens in this chapter far as I am concerned is within that same range, I feel the need to give out this warning:
There is absolutely NO WHITEROSE SHIPPING in this story. Never was, never will.
With that out of the way, as always, big shout out for the broest of bros, Chaos Productions, for his huge help in making my writing less mediocre.
And of course, as always, I do not own either RWBY nor League of Legends.
Now, please enjoy.
/
It was cold.
Ice and snow surrounded her, slowly but steadily consuming the metal wreckage, gale winds freezing her to the core.
She could barely make out anything over the blizzard and the blood seeping into her vision.
Terrified, confused, alone, she clung to her mother even as she called out for her sister, for help, for anyone to save them.
And to her growing terror, the blizzard almost seem to call back, a massive, dark shape approaching through the snow.
A black, wicked claw reaching for her.
And that awful, monstrous, soul chilling shriek…
Weiss woke up with a start, her already pale skin ashen, her breathing laboured and her eyes wide in thoughtless panic. Frantically, she looked around, and as she realized she was in Beacon, with her teammates sleeping in beds each adjacent to a wall of their dorm room, the final shreds of the nightmare she'd been having finally loosened their grip, and the heiress managed to calm down.
Relief and frustration flooding through her in equal measure, the white-haired girl laid back down, delicate fingers gingerly reaching for the faint, but sharp scar that marred her face.
"Weiss…?" A soft voice whispered.
Looking to her side, Weiss saw, in the shadow of the room, where the moonlight coming from the window did not reach, a spectral, glowing orb gazing at her from the darkness. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that hadn't worn off yet, perhaps it was the tiredness that was beginning to overwhelm her once again, or perhaps it was just an odd, growing familiarization with this sort of thing, but as she recognized the eerie sight as being her team leader, Weiss found that she just didn't have it in her to be frightened right now.
"Ok…?" Ruby asked quietly, a question that honestly had the heiress considering how she could answer.
It had been so long ago… Why was that haunting her now?
"Yeah." She ultimately answered with another sigh. "I'm fine, Ruby. It was… just a bad dream."
"Sure…?"
"Yes. It's nothing to worry about." The heiress replied politely, but with finality, and silence echoed in the wake of her answer, as that eye regarded her, giving nothing away.
"…Ok. G'night." Ruby mumbled, the green glow vanishing as Weiss heard the distinct shuffling of someone making themselves comfortable.
"Good night, Ruby." She replied, and closed her eyes.
It would take quite a while for sleep to claim her again.
/
In the days that followed, the two teams found some semblance of normality settling over their school life. While the sheer impression Ruby had left through her deeds had the unfortunate side effect of causing some alienation from their peers, for nobody wanted to be the next to be faced with the quiet girl's blank, terrifying gaze, the girls of RWBY and the more mixed JNPR found companionship with each other, all 8 members often seen spending time together in between classes and assignments, conversing during meal times and joining up in team exercises. It honestly made Ruby very glad to see that it wasn't just she and Jaune talking while everyone else kept uncomfortably quiet anymore. It made her even more glad that they didn't walk on eggshells around her so much, barring a relapse here and there. As far as she was concerned, that meant that things were going well.
And so a refreshingly uneventful few weeks went by, barring perhaps a few Grimm encounters during that one field trip. And the small, but curious fact that did not escape Ruby's notice.
/
Something was wrong, she realized.
They were heading out on a field trip to Forever Fall, and mostly, everyone was excited, chatting amongst themselves about this and that.
Not Weiss, though.
Weiss had found herself a spot in the most secluded part of the Bullhead she could manage, and was sitting with her eyes clenched shut. The statuesque stillness with which her partner held herself was broken by frantic breathing and the occasional tremble.
Weiss was afraid, it was plain to see, even more so to feel.
But for once, it wasn't of her. And if not her, then what?
"Weiss…?" Ruby called out, approaching quietly, not wanting to draw the others' attention to her partner's apparent trouble, earning a flinch from the white-haired girl.
"What is it, Ruby?" The older girl all but hissed out, not in anger or malice, but obvious distress.
"What's matter?" Was the cloaked teen's quiet question, even as Merle left his perch on her shoulder in favor of the seat beside the heiress, eyeing her curiously.
"Nothing's the matter." Weiss denied, eye briefly cracking open to throw a glare at her, though that wilted quickly when faced with her blank, unimpressed eyes.
"Don't seem nothing." She pressed. Weiss was her partner. Partners help each other.
"I…" The older girl hesitated, flinching once more as the bullhead met some turbulence, letting out a small whimper, sounding and looking so little like the proud, bossy girl Ruby was used to… "I just don't feel comfortable flying, ok? Please, just let me be."
Ruby didn't, though. Weiss was afraid of flying. They were currently flying.
What could she, that was so used to causing fear, do to help curb it…?
Eventually, she just sat down on Weiss' other side, and placed her hand on the older girl's own.
Weiss flinched at the initial contact, but made no attempt to let go.
/
After realizing how uncomfortable an experience the trip had been for Weiss, and in retrospect realizing her meanness back when they first met might have been in part derived from Weiss being high strung from that first travel to Beacon, Ruby had decided to try to cheer her partner up by doing something nice for her. And so, she had let the white-haired girl choose their Saturday activity for the following weekend.
Personally, she thought that catching a Bullhead to Vale kind of defeated the purpose. But if it was what Weiss decided…
So it was that team RWBY found themselves in Vale on a Saturday morning, calmly walking towards the docks. A small part of the young, red-cloaked girl could not help but wonder if letting Weiss have any say in their activities had been such a good idea. Merle, roosting on her shoulder with his head hidden under a wing, was far too sleepy to provide input.
"So remind me again, what are we doing here?" Blake inquired grumpily, barely containing a yawn.
"Weiss choice." Ruby replied simply.
"I know. But was it really necessary to wake up this early to see the first preparations of the Vytal Festival?" The older girl grumbled, leaving Ruby to wonder how much of such behaviour may be part of her heritage.
"Could say no if no want to come." The smaller girl suggested, honestly a bit confused why Blake hadn't just done so. Forcing people to do things was not the type of leader she wanted to be.
"It's not that I didn't want to come, it's just…" Blake replied quickly, a light grimace on her face. "Huugh, way too early…"
"Others doing fine…" The team leader pointed out, earning her an unimpressed look from the older teen, who cast glance at Yang's zombie like gait, and at the sleeping bird on Ruby's shoulder, before looking back at her with an eyebrow raised.
"…Mostly." The red-cloaked girl amended. "Weiss and I fine."
"I am fairly sure at this point that Weiss is some sort of clockwork robot. And you, you barely even sleep anyway. Most people don't enjoy being up early." The black-haired girl shot down, throwing another glance at the sleeping Merle that looked almost envious, and Ruby considered the words.
"Can get coffee in a bit." She offered, which had Blake's eyes briefly widening in surprise before the older girl's expression softened.
"That sounds good. Thanks."
Even if her face and demeanour, as always, didn't show it, Ruby still felt rather pleased. It seemed like she was finally making progress at this whole being a leader thing.
"Hey!" A voice called out, making the duo look towards an annoyed Weiss, a bit further ahead of them, with Yang beside her. "What are you two lagging behind for? Come on!"
The duo proceeded to do just that, and so resuming their walk, the team soon found themselves at their destination. As suggested by Ruby, they proceeded to indulge in some coffee and breakfast at a coffee shop's terrace by the pier.
"Aaaaahhh." Blake sighed in relief, as the the warmth of her beverage washed away her weariness. "Much better."
"You're really not a morning person, uh?" Yang observed, earning her an annoyed look from her partner.
"This coming from the walking dead impersonator." The black-haired girl snarked.
"Hey, I am not disagreeing." The blonde replied, taking a sip out of her own beverage. "But you were griping about it a lot more than I was."
"… I like my sleep." Was the pouty reply, earning her a chuckle from Yang.
"Well, moving on from that." The blonde relented, turning to the rest of the team. "Now that we're all a bit more awake, mind explaining just why were you so insistent in coming here, Weiss? Not a lot to see in Vale's docks…"
"Well." The heiress replied, calmly putting her tea cup back on the table. "Besides wanting to see for myself the preparations for the Vytal Festival beginning, I heard word that the students from other academies were going to start arriving today. More precisely, the ship from Vacuo and the Shade Academy should be…" She glanced at a clock. "arriving any minute now. I just wanted to welcome our colleagues."
"And probably get a leg up on the competition by scouting for information?" Blake asked, somewhat derisively, only to to be surprised when the white-haired teen only shrugged.
"If anything slips through that we can use, it's their own fault." She said simply.
"Uh, kinda cutthroat of you." Yang couldn't help but comment. "That how you do things in Atlas?"
"Nothing of the sort." Weiss snapped with a grimace. "And I'd really rather not talk about… home." The last word was spoken in a tone that seemed to imply it was anything but, and catching on to that, Blake and Yang decided to let the matter drop.
Ruby and Merle had just been happily munching on some cake during the whole interaction.
"At any rate." The Heiress continued. "It shouldn't be too long until-"
"Hey, catch that Faunus thief!"
As if on cue, all the girls blinked and looked to the side.
It seemed that as they'd been eating and talking, the ship they'd been waiting for had arrived.
And apparently, only one passenger of the right age range to be a student had come in with it.
And that passenger happened to be the blond, monkey Faunus stowaway now having a jolly old time dodging the police as he ran across the pier.
…
"Intel faulty." Ruby muttered, earning a caw of agreement from Merle. Weiss ignored them in favor of yelling a "AFTER HIM!"
And the young team leader was out the coffee shop before any of the others even got up, petals and feathers landing softly in her seat.
The stowaway was just about to bail out of the area, merrily giving his regards to the chasing officers, when suddenly he found her barring his path.
"Uh…" He hesitated. "Hey, kid. Would you mind moving-?"
"Running from police, bad." She said simply as she stared at him, thoroughly creeping the boy out.
"What, them? Oh, come on, that was just-" He tried to brush away at the same time he tried to gently push past her.
"Bad. Stay." She said, her eye flaring.
And the stowaway barely had the time to wonder what was that creepy flaming thing all about before a wave of sheer unadulterated dread washed over him, promptly making him fall on his rear and frantically crab crawl backwards away from the horrifying girl, right into the arms of the now arriving police, who proceeded to pick him up, thank her for her obvious aid in detaining the miscreant, and drag the fear addled stowaway, well, away.
Glancing at each other and nodding at a job well done, the girl and the crow turned to return to their cake, and found her teammates staring at her from the entrance of the coffee shop. It did not escape her notice how, while Weiss seemed very pleased with what she had just done, Blake seemed to be anything but.
Had she somehow misstepped?
/
Having then finished their breakfast, paid for the meal, and made sure much to Weiss' chagrin that there had been indeed no Vacuo students coming out of the ship, the team found themselves walking through Vale, intent on seeing the sights and whether they could find something else to pass the time.
Unlike the talking that had been going on earlier though, now there was only silence as they walked. Ruby was no stranger to silence ensuing things that she did, but for once she found it frustrating rather than confusing. Things had been coming along nicely in the team, and now it seemed like they'd taken a step back for some reason. She could kinda guess why Weiss'd be grumpy that the outing had been a bust, and Yang wasn't usually one to start the conversations. But why was Blake so grumpy as well?
"Ruby." The girl in question addressed her as they walked, her tone curt and distant, drawing not only her attention but also Yang and Weiss'.
"Yeah?"
"Was that really necessary?" Blake asked, a frown on her face as she looked at the younger girl disapprovingly.
"What was?" Ruby mumbled, not quite getting the question, Merle fixing the black-haired girl with a perplexed look.
"What you did to that guy." The older girl elaborated. "Was it really necessary?"
"Yes?" The red-cloaked girl half-asked half-answered, not really seeing the issue. "Bad, so stopped him."
Apparently that had been the entirely wrong thing to say, because to Ruby's confusion, her black-haired teammate seemed to bristle at the words, taking the other two older teens aback, while Ruby merely blinked.
"So just because he was a Faunus you just assume he was up to no good?" She all but hissed.
…What?
Ruby and Merle glanced at each other confusedly, before turning their gaze back to their for some reason incensed teammate.
"Why matter? Don't care 'bout that." She answered while tilting her head, the answer delivered in a particularly flat tone that seemed to catch the other girl off-guard, as all she could muster in response was a flabbergasted "What?"
"Don't care if Faunus or Human." Ruby elaborated. "Same to me. If do good, good. If do bad, I stop, same way both. Police after him, he mock and run, I stop. Also stopped Torchwick. Also stopped Cardin."
Her words seemed to mollify Blake, who now looked rather embarrassed, not quite meeting her eyes.
"…Oh." She eventually said, rather awkwardly. "Uuhm… Sorry, I guess I misjudged."
"S'ok." The younger girl dismissed. Because that was what teammates were supposed to do, wasn't it?
"I don't see what all the fuss is about." Weiss interjected into the conversation. "I mean, Ruby's right. That… miscreant may have not been something like those White Fang degenerates, but we was clearly disrespecting the law. She just acted as a huntress should and apprehended him. "
Ruby blinked. Praise from Weiss was not given lightly, but the rest sounded a little mean, and she wasn't the only one to notice, because Blake was bristling all over again.
"The White Fang are not degenerates." She hissed, glaring much like an angry cat. "They are just-"
She was interrupted by a rather unlady like snort from the Heiress.
"Let me guess what you're going to say." She retorted contemptuously. "They're misguided? Well-intentioned? Working for Peace? I've heard it all before. I don't know what sort of idiotic propaganda you've been listening to, but I can tell you with 100% certainty it's all a pile of lies. The White Fang are nothing but a bunch of filthy thieves and murderers."
There was more venom in those words than in some Deathstalkers out there, so much so in fact that Blake's anger briefly crumbled in the face of how taken aback she was by it. Briefly.
"Trust a Schnee to be so blatantly and arrogantly biased. Do you have any idea how bratty you're sounding?!" Was her retort, as the duo began glaring at each other in a way that had Ruby thinking, maybe in another time, she might have found scary.
"Why don't we all just calm down a bit?" Yang tried to interject calmly, seeking to diffuse the tense situation. "You're both getting a bit too high stru-ooof!"
Clang!
"Wha-ack!"
Clang!
"Uh-urgh!"
Clang!
Ruby and Merle blinked as they stared down at their teammates, laid out on the floor in various degrees of disorientation, then up at what had made them fall. It seems the team had been paying so much attention to their little spat, they had never noticed the girl until they ran into her.
The red-cloaked girl regarded the new arrival, somehow completely unphased by the collision and just now turning to see what happened, a confused look on her face. She had bright orange hair, decorated by a bright pink bow, vibrant eyes a shade of light green brighter than her own, and dark green clothes with odd lighter green lines decorating them.
Ruby's expression shifted minutely, the barest hints of a confused frown upon it. The was something odd about this girl. Something almost…
"Whoops, sorry about that!" The stranger said with some embarrassment, as she helped the three downed teammates up, by literally grabbing them off the floor by the shoulders and placing them on their feet. "I was so distracted I didn't see where I was going."
"It's… quite alright." Weiss replied, shaking her head to get rid of the dizziness. "We should probably apologize too, we were quite a bit distracted ourselves."
"Oh, no harm done then." The girl replied cheerily, somehow missing how Yang and Blake were rubbing a sore nose and back respectively.
"Who are you?" The blond asked, causing the girl's eyes to widen in mortification.
"Oh, where are my manners?" The girl chuckled embarrassedly, and then before the perplexed eyes of Team RWBY, curtsied. "I'm Penny. Penny O.R. Polendina. I am delighted to make your acquaintance. And who might you be?"
"Weiss Schnee."
"Yang Xiao Long."
"Blake Belladonna."
"… Ruby Rose-"
"Caw!"
"-Merle."
The newly introduced Penny had been turning her head to nod in greeting as each of them made their introductions, but when her eyes fell on Ruby, the redhead for some odd reason did a double take, her friendly smile replaced by as quizzical expression as she blinked at the red-cloaked girl, who blinked right back, leaving a confused trio of teens glancing back and forth between them.
"So…" Weiss awkwardly began. "What brings you to Vale, Penny?"
As if a spell had been broken, the girl broke the staring contest to address the question, friendly smile in full bloom once more.
"Oh, I am here for the festival, of course."
"The festival?" Blake questioned in surprise. "You're a student?"
"Indeed I am!" Was the cheery confirmation. "I will be fighting for Atlas in the tournament, but right now I am just here in Vale to see the sights. Unfortunately, I think I lost my friend somewhere out on the streets, and I was looking for them when I bumped into you." The girl's expression turned quizzical again. "You wouldn't happened to have seen… something strange around here, have you?"
"Uuuuuh…" Yang hesitated. "Define "strange"."
"No need." Penny shook her head, an amused little smile on her face as if she had just heard a joke only she was party to. "You obviously didn't see them, else you'd know." Her attention then turned back to Ruby, expression pondering. "Given that there's four of you, I take it you're a team from the local academy?"
"Yes…" The young team leader confirmed, head tilting as she regarded this odd, mysterious, familiar girl… "Team RWBY…"
"I see." The redhead replied neutrally, before approaching the smaller teen, lowering herself so their faces were nearly touching, in what to anyone else would be a massive breach of personal space, but Ruby gave no reaction other than continuing her blank staring.
"I'm sorry, but…" Penny inquired, a pensive frown on her face. "…Have we met before? You look… really familiar…"
Ruby blinked, unsure on how to reply, because, honestly, she should be asking the same thing. As those vibrant green eyes stared deep into her own dual-colored ones, however, the quiet teen noticed an oddity in them. The way the pupils seemed to dilate and shrink minutely as they regarded her felt far too rhythmic. Unnaturally so. Mechanically so. She saw this, and…
She remembered then, a maiden, her flesh forever lost to the embrace of cold steel, her face forever frozen in an expression chilling in its neutrality, weaving across the battlefield with all the grace of a dancer amidst a performance, commanding her other half, the inhuman sphere, to wreak havoc upon her enemies…
Ruby's eyes widened ever so faintly in shock.
"Orianna…?" She all but whispered.
The girl recoiled at the name, staring at her in utter shock… for all of five seconds. Then, recognition seemed to literally flash across those eyes, and an ecstatic grin bloomed on her face…
"Old friend!"
"Squawk!"
… And before anyone could make any sense of what was happening, Ruby found herself lifted off the ground, wrapped in a deceptively strong bear hug by the cheery redhead. Leaving the rest of the team gaping at the sight of their team leader, the terrifying little girl that had bested the Ebonmaw, struggling helplessly in the grip of this other, not quite as terrifying but no less weird girl, half-heartedly trying to kick herself free, her expression blank as ever even as their cheeks rubbed together, her crow squawking indignantly at the abrupt loss of its perch and flapping around, pecking at the thoroughly unphased teen's head in aggravation.
"Let go, let go…" The young team leader mumbled, faint annoyance marring her usually blank tone. And it was only at that point the other girl seemed to register all the kicking and pecking, separating from her but not yet letting go.
"Oooh, it's so nice to see a familiar face!" She cheered, before regarding the utterly unimpressed stare Ruby was giving her. "Well, perhaps not the face, but still familiar. How are even here? Why do you look like that? Were you always actually a girl, Fiddl-?"
"Ruby." The newly revealed clockwork girl blinked at being cut off.
"I'm sorry?"
"My name. Is Ruby."
"Oh." The redhead replied, obviously confused, she brushed it off quickly with a "Alright then, Rubysticks."
Ruby's silver eye twitched once.
"Oooh but what am I doing?" The girl swiftly moved on, clearly not seeing how annoyed the object of her fascination currently was. "Why don't we go somewhere? There's so much catching up that-"
She was once again interrupted, this time by a loud beeping noise. It took a couple of seconds for everyone to realize it was the odd girl's scroll.
"Uh." Penny noted, finally fully letting go of Ruby and checking the device.
"Hang on a second, I have to take this… Hello? Oh, Hi, Dad!... You'll never believe who I-Yeah? … Yeah… What, now? But I just- No I don't know where it is, it's become way too curious, likes to drift off, I was looking when- But Daaaadd… Ugh, fine, I'm going. Yeah, yeah, I love you too. Later!"
Her call ended, she turned back to regard Ruby briefly.
"So, this is a real shame, but I have to be going now." She said despondently, before an easy grin returned to her face. "Not to worry though, I'll be around until the Festival, so we'll have plenty of chances to catch up. Bye, Rubysticks! Bye, Team RWBY, I'll see you all later!"
And with that she ran off, leaving everyone wondering just what had happened. Ruby in particular was having a hard time processing it, blinking as she saw the figure of a distant past disappear past a corner, and exchanging glances with an equally confused Merle. Could it really be? All that… cheeriness didn't sound like the cold, metal girl of her memories…
She then noticed that her teammates eyes had fallen on her, as if expecting her to hold all the answers to what had just gone down…
"No idea."
… Which in all honesty was expecting too much of her, really.
"Oooooook, then. How about we put this… odd encounter aside for now," Weiss eventually replied, her immense confusion put on the backburner as she levelled another glare at Blake. " And you explain what exactly did you mean by "arrogantly biased"?"
…Ruby had been hoping the duo had forgotten their earlier argument. Once more upon her shoulder, Merle heaved a weary sigh.
/
So, the plot thickens.
I have dropped a fair few hints of things to come, and hopefully put in enough of my own spin to happenings you all probably saw hundreds of times already to keep you interested. Let me know what you all think.
The next update will be to Beneath a Broken Moon, where we shall progress through my very own original arc, so look forward to that. Or at least look forward to it being closer to being done so we can move on to other canon arcs.
Cheers, guys, and cya all on the next one.