"Tiger, are you ready?"
Ruby had herself and her team behind her, Tiger the tank was in front with a Grimm Ursa sculpted out of ice for their practice. Everyone was ready, well except for the person performing the stunt.
"No, I fear something is going to go kaput the moment we try this-"
"Weiss, Tiger. Blitzkrieg!"
Tiger groaned on the inside. "Just be gentle!"
Weiss reacted immediately, her finessed swordsmanship showing itself with her rapid deployment of normal speed-enhancing glyphs in a line, a combustion glyph right behind Tiger, and a time-dilation glyph right on the tank.
Weiss breathed harder and tried keeping her pace, handling different variations of glyphs at a time made it difficult for her stamina to keep herself up and stay focused.
Tiger starts to shrink after feeling the effects of the glyphs, making himself lighter as the combustion glyph starts to explode. "Now!" he yelled.
*BOOM!*
His speed was unnatural, easily being the fastest tank constructed at that moment, he blitzed his way past the dummy Grimm. The sudden burst of speed came through, moving past it easily before feeling himself grow back to size.
With his brakes not usable at this speed, Weiss at the back flung her Myrtenaster forward, her revolver-action dust on the hilt turning to gravity dust. She aimed for the left side of Tiger and pushed her semblance to activate.
Tiger experiences a sudden change in his direction, a gravity glyph offsetting his speed from the left and right track forcing him to turn quickly toward the back of the dummy Grimm. The strategy Ruby came up with worked! A burst of speed to quickly go past through defenses and land a hit from behind, named Blitzkrieg because of the German nationality of Tiger.
Oh, perhaps it turned Tiger too much.
Tiger whipped from facing forward to facing the rear, and his gun overshooting across the dummy Grimm. His barrel started swaying off from the target before he fired. "Scheiße! Watch out!"
His shell missed and aimed back straight at the crew observing the situation.
A whistling noise came, his shell directly hitting Iosif guarding the rest of the team who was behind him the entire time. "Woah!" Iosif yelled, the grating noise of reverberating metal plates echoing through the area. "You all alright? Ricochets usually are painful for the crew so the ringing might transfer all over to you back there, especially if you hold on."
Ruby spoke back. "We're fine! Blake isn't though, she's starting to roll on the ground. I think she's worse because of the increased hearing from her ears."
On the ground was Blake, clutching on all four of her ears while Yang was patting her on the head for comfort. "Why did you all need me to join you?! You could've taken Weiss and the tanks without us!"
"Aww come on, Blake. Maybe we could try another day but with ear protection this time. I think everyone in the school heard that too…" Ruby suddenly realized a problem. "Oh Brothers, did you think we hit something with that shell?! I think it went to Vale!"
[In The Middle Of Vale]
"Finally boys!" Junior yelled. "The front is completely fixed! Thankfully I got some extra help and we could reopen today!"
""Woooo!""
The gang of suited people cheered and howled in happiness. It was back-breaking work but after weeks of work, they had done the interior and finally finished the exterior.
They were going to celebrate for once.
Junior stopped them all. "Wait! Keep quiet! Do you all hear that?" He swung around to see everyone keeping silent and listening closely.
"I hear whistling sir-"
*BOOM!*
"..."
"..."
"If there is someone we hit… we can tank Tiger for that. Eh? Eh?"
"Yang, please." Blake pleaded. "My ears are already ringing from the ricochet, I don't want to lose more of my hearing because of your puns."
"Anyways!" Ruby announced. "We can try again tomorrow. I want Sherman and Iosif to test out Torch and Bagration." She started walking towards an idle Tiger while the rest of team RWBY and her tanks watched from afar. "Let's go, Tiger. I still need to find some… ugh… heels."
"Umm… Ruby?" Tiger calls for her attention. "Something in my drivetrain broke."
"Oh." She turns back to her team. "Uhh… you guys can head back to the dorms and do… stuff. Tiger broke down and I need to fix him quickly in the workshop." An idea popped into her head, a way to avoid the enemy of all feet. "Oh no~ because I need to repair Tiger, I don't think I can find heels for the dance! Weiss, you should probably give up trying to make me wear them."
The heiress smirked. "Don't worry Ruby, I foresaw this, and I have a wardrobe's worth of my heels you can try. We're close to the same size so please, enjoy trying them all out."
"Wait, that's not how you're supposed to respond!" the team already walked away with her final remark. "Oh Brothers, I'm going to die from the dance…" she sighed and faced the unmoving tank. "Tiger, let's get you back to the shop and fix you. Let's hope I don't need to replace your entire drive."
"I think I only heard a snap, so you might need to replace one or two things."
"If that's the case then it's a relief. I've been working on you guys more than Crescent Rose, I should probably start asking for Ironwood for parts that he can manufacture. I'm not a machinist so the designs I have wouldn't work without entire factories. Your gas can be filled by tomorrow since Ironwood told me he'd have the first batch for us."
"That's good. I definitely want to change parts of myself. I still shiver knowing I can break down during a battle. Thanks, Ruby." He shrinks down to the size of Ruby's palm. She crouches down and picks him up and heads towards the school and at the back where her workshop was.
With Ruby working on the gearbox, she finally sees multiple failures inside, the gears have been torn and shredded apart from the speed and have to be replaced. She hoped it would take at most a few hours at worst.
"Hey, Tiger."
"Hmm?"
"How are you not dead even if your turret is lifted out? I've been meaning to ask since I was scared the first time you told me how to repair a turret ring. Now, I'm just curious to see how much you can take."
"I'm not so sure myself, right now, I am looking through my gunner's view but I can still move my hull. I have much less confidence in knowing other things like how my shrinking would affect someone when they're inside."
"We should totally try that next time!"
"Ruby, please refrain from recklessly handling me ever again. At least until I can get those promised parts from Atlas, still kind of disappointed that I can't use dust."
"Wait, who said you can't use dust?"
"The general emphasized steel so I assumed I can't use dust. If not, I would've gotten something like dust-metal alloys to use for something or dust ammunition."
"That's understandable, dust needs aura to activate. It's not like you… have… a… soul." She slowly creaked her head in Tiger's direction and her eyes began to sparkle in inspiration. "Tiger, I know what we're going to do today!"
"Ruby, please don't get any ideas yet. Wait until we have free time, don't you have a gearbox to fix?"
"Oh, sorry! I just tend to hyper-focus on an idea, I once tried adding a flamethrower to anything I worked on. Hooooo! We can add one to you-"
"Ruby…"
"Ahem… sorry." Ruby kept working back on the table, creating the gears needed was going to take a long time in casting but she had time, besides, Weiss was going to torture her later with heels so she'd rather work on someone like Tiger.
As the minutes went by, Tiger felt like it was time for him to enact his plans. "Ruby, about the dance. Why did you pick me? It's not like you can dance with a tank anyways."
"Well everyone else seems to have one!" Ruby then tried hiding her shame. "A boy, I mean. Even Yang could get someone along if she wanted - but me? I don't have anyone I can invite…"
An emotionally compromised young girl with boy problems? Score! Tiger could definitely get her to dance with Weiss, it would only need guidance. With that in mind, Tiger had to tread carefully.
"Ruby, you do know it isn't limited to a boy? You know… you could invite someone who considers you a friend despite being so… different? A certain someone who can give you a… N-ice time?"
"Hmm…" Ruby placed a hand under her chin. "Ah!" She snapped her fingers, finally realizing someone she could get. "Penny! I completely forgot she's here for the Vytal Festival!"
"Yes- I mean no!"
"Huh? Why?"
"Doh! I- uhh… nevermind... Penny is a great person to hang out with. I mean you did paint your nails and find a hairpin."
"That's right! She also said stuff about trying out new things! This is the perfect chance for us to teach her."
Ruby smiled brightly. Some sense of guilt came to Tiger. Would he really try to compromise the young girl's honest and sincere actions to hang out with a robot devoid of human experience just so he could satisfy his desire to beat Iosif and Sherman? Tiger may be a questionably lifeless machine but he had a consciousness. It's not like he'd maliciously further his own goals.
"Actually, I think Weiss would be good too."
Nope, he will.
"Weiss? But didn't she say she already had someone in mind to dance with? I don't think she'd appreciate me trying to butt in… again."
"Don't you want Weiss to be a better person? Less snobbish, more friendly, those kinds of things? Ruby, you might now know her too much but isn't this also a great chance?"
"I mean, you're not wrong… ever since we kinda left the whole 'being a leader' thing behind us, I wanted to see her smile like the first time she did. I'm her friend and I rarely see her enjoying herself. All her problems and issues with her father and being the heiress are weighing down on her."
Tiger was smirking if he could. "Well, isn't this a good time to try?"
"But what about Penny? What about who Weiss is going to invite? I don't want to prevent those! Ahhh… why is it so hard to decide? I wish I had dad to talk to about this stuff, he did have two wives…"
"The dance didn't say how many…right?"
Ruby had been finished, it was nearing lunch at the moment so she still had to take Tiger and the rest of the tanks out with her. She walked the halls with light steps, her previous ideas for the tanks had continuously kept her distracted and her mind in euphoria.
"Yo."
"Woah!" Ruby snapped out of her daydreaming, a voice called out to her, she recognized it from before. "Sorry!" She says, bumping into the person who turned the corner at the exact same time.
"You've got to stop meeting me like this, I'm pretty sure I'll get sent to the nurses' office, Ruby."
"Umm… What was your name again?"
The boy looked slightly hurt from the blatant attack on his memorability. "Ouch. Mercury, remember? The person you almost killed with your clumsiness. I'll say I'd be grateful when a girl falls for me but I don't think this is the case. Let alone when it happened twice, if it's because of lady fate - then fate chose right when you found me."
He winked. For God's sake, he winked! Tiger was not having a random person make his plans in defeating Iosif and Sherman in any type of contest get ruined.
"O-o-oh… ummm…"
She's stuttering! Bastard locked on! Engines engaged! Prepare to fire! Tiger was panicking, he either needed to blow a bloody hole right through the boy or die trying.
"I was wondering, I don't have anyone else on my team that appreciates my time." Mercury chuckled, knowing full well what he said was true in his eyes. "So, I wanted to ask you personally if you'd like to go to the dance with me-"
"You."
*CRUNCH*
The two looked to see someone at the opposite end of the hallway. Ruby widened her eyes, it was Yang. Her hand was clutching a scroll, or at least the remnants of one. Mercury didn't turn around, he felt bloodlust more intense than Cinder's. Certain doom was looming, his knees shivered despite literally being metal. He slowly turned around to gawk at Yang with red eyes and a ghastly grin across her face.
"Here I was trying to find Ruby after she'd missed my calls. I assumed it was because my cute little sister was fixing her beloved friends. Now, though - I thought wrong, who are you, boy?"
"Oh! Look at the time, I better get going!"
Deeming it to be the best course of action, Mercury ran away and Yang gave chase despite not knowing who this was. "Hey! Get back here! What were you doing to my sister!"
Ruby stops her by blocking her way. "Wait! He didn't do anything!"
"She's lying," Tiger responded without warning. "That guy's name is Mercury and he was attempting to bed your sister because, and I quote. 'Is your face this soft and cute? You look like a marshmallow that I'd like to shove my stick into.' directed at Ruby of course."
"What?!" Ruby said with a harsh blush. She'd never been well-educated in terms of romance but she definitely got the innuendo. "He never said that-"
"I'm gonna saw off his junk and feed it to the dogs!"
"Wait-" Ruby failed to cease her older sister's rampage. Tiger prayed to the poor soul but in his mind, crossing a German's plan to win is a one-way ticket to the objective of revenge. "Tiger, why'd you lie?"
"I have no idea what you're saying, Ruby. I wonder how the others are doing? We're getting late." Tiger quickly deflected.
[A Shower Blake borrowed because Yang took the hot water]
Sherman wasn't getting anywhere, bringing up the dance was like bringing up taking a bath for cats… actually Blake is a cat, or acting like one, so maybe Sherman was justifiable in trying to find the perfect chance to talk about the dance.
He was impatient though. "Blake, I know this isn't the best time to ask but are you really going to the dance with Sun?"
"Sherman, I'm in the middle of a shower with you on top of the sink. What made you bring that up? Besides, Yang already asked me about my partner. Sun is going to expect my participation. If I back out now, it won't be different from running away from my problems. I'd like to change that about myself."
"Well, would you like it if you danced with him?"
"He's a good friend-"
Oof.
"-personality-wise, I think he'd make a good comfort figure. The type of person who is the first to come out and lend a hand. Why are you asking about this anyways?"
"I'm worried about both you and Yang."
"Why the both of us?"
"You are not enjoying anything at all, do you? Despite the status of Torchwick and the White Fang, you still haven't calmed down at all. Don't think I can see you sneak in a few searches on your web history."
"But it's true! The White Fang isn't going to stay calm after all this. Didn't you hear that an operation on the southeast is happening right under all our noses? Not to mention Ruby deciding not to report on it for reasons."
"Blake, you're not going to help yourself by acting so closed-off. Didn't you want to change? I swear most of your team has an issue with something in their lives. First Yang and Ruby with their second mother-"
"Second mother?"
"You never knew? Huh, I guess tanks hear more about the sisters' history." Sherman got the greatest segway towards pushing Blake with Yang. "You know… you can always ask Yang when you're dancing with her. You'd be surprised at how much stuff you don't know about each other."
Blake peeked out from the shower curtains with narrowed eyes. "I'm seeing a suspicious amount of nudging me toward Yang. You're adamant about finding me a partner like her."
"It's hard to see someone not enjoying themselves. Have I ever told you about my time before coming here? I cannot tell it accurately but the crew that used to inhabit me acted kind of like Ruby. The start of the second world war was almost like an adventure… but then brothers-in-arms died and the grueling reality of blood-soaked battle set in. The moments when they could laugh and tell jokes were gone. Yet, even when it all seemed lost - they promised each other they would go back to the U.S. and see the Grand Canyon because one of them died not knowing what it looked like… that's when a shell pierced through me and killed them all. Blake, you need someone to help you out with worrying. An example would be, how can anyone enjoy life if they constantly dream about their deaths? You're all still practically kids, loosen up a little, yeah?"
"…You're a good motivator." Blake smiled. "I'll talk to Yang and give Sun a chance. You know… it's hard to tell if you're the same person when you fight. Where's all that aggressive and incoherent insult at the enemy?"
Sherman chuckled. "That's just my patriotism leaking."
[JNPR Dorm]
Iosif didn't get into any trouble when trying to make the discussion of the dance available to him. Jaune was… Jaune, meaning he was prone to talk about the prospects of girls. It especially made it weird when he had no one else to talk about his love life other than the only other male in his team, Ren.
"So what do you think?"
"Jaune, is this appropriate considering my… non-clothed state? Can I at least change before we talk about this? Even Nora is listening to us as we talk." Ren pleaded as he tries reaching over to his clothes inside the closet.
"Huh?!" Jaune turned his head around to the bed and saw Nora glancing peeks and lifting a part of her headphones off. "Nora! Headphones on!"
"Aww! But I want to hear fearless leader talk about his love life!"
"Shouldn't you focus on your own?! You have Ren!"
"Well… we are really not together-together…"
Iosif caught their attention with a rev of his engines. "You took about 10 separate glances at him during this entire time and the page hasn't been flipped 3 minutes ago. I don't think friends ogle if they want to stay friends. Admit it, Nora!"
"Aahaha…." Nora laughed nervously. "Oh no, it looks like my headphones are keeping me from hearing anything! I've got to finish this book!" Nora then starts flipping through the pages with everyone in the room obviously doubting her previous words.
Jaune turned back to Ren who was still blank-faced at the entire situation. "So… do you think I have a chance?"
"Ok, let me take over." Iosif declared. "So let me get this straight. You asked Weiss to the dance, and she rejected you, not to mention all the other times she blatantly disregarded your existence and you still think she's your best shot?"
"…Yes? Look, she's just playing hard to get."
"You sound like a stalker."
"…Okay, I admit I sound like one but that's not what I was going for. But who else am I going to invite to the dance?"
"Pyrrha."
"Pft! I don't have a chance. She probably has a dozen other people that asked her out who are more talented, good-looking, smarter, and basically everything else I am not."
"Jaune. I literally made you grab her breast and she whispered 'don't stop' the moment I came into this world. The spirit of communism is as strong as my desire to get people together - it was on instinct that I knew you had to be together."
"Wait, so you did that on purpose?!"
"Yes! Are you serious about telling me you don't have a chance? You don't need to crack the Enigma Code to tell that you all have something going on with her."
"…Maybe she was just mistaken. No way she likes me because I'm not even the best fighter. For Brothers' sake, I don't even have a proper reason for my credentials coming to this school. How can you be so sure? There are loads of other people out there better than me."
"Jaune… does that really matter? Love knows no bounds. Well... except for some cases, especially Sherman's case with Ruby and Yang." He shivers, with metal in his frame suddenly feeling like vibrations going through him, despite not being able to do so based on the laws of nature.
"…Can you ask for me then?" Jaune asked softly, his words reaching most of the people inside the room. Yes, Nora took off her headphones again and had glitters in her eyes.
Iosif finally had a breakthrough! The soviet tank had more enthusiasm for making the thick-headed boy have a chance at love than breaking the German Army Group Centre. "You're considering it?"
Jaune rubbed his head awkwardly. "I guess I am."
"Then…" Iosif paused, he may have won the bet but he wasn't in it for winning. He wanted these to be together because it was in his belief. "…no."
Shocked at the unexpected answer, Jaune stood up in protest. "What?"
"I said no." Iosif reiterated.
"But you said-"
"I said you will ask her. Jaune, tell me are you strong?"
"...Yes?"
"No, you are weak!"
"Oh." Jaune slumped in acceptance.
"So what are you gonna do about it? If you have something you want, do you put in the work to do so? Did Pyrrha train you just because of nothing? No, it's because you wanted it. So what will you do, Jaune!"
"I- I- I can be better!"
"Then be the bigger man, Arc! Get out there, march over to your woman like a Soviet man out to kill fascists! Are you a pansy or are you going to leave Pyrrha hanging like Benito Mussolini?!"
"I don't know who that is!" He enthusiastically answers, despite the confusion.
"Who cares?! What matters is your undying will. Are you a fucking weakling or are you gonna be a man!? Is Jaune going to be remembered as the weak-ass boy who couldn't get a girl to dance with him?! Is he going to be remembered for doing something stupid like dancing with a dress?!"
"No!" He answered with even more screaming. The room devolved into a shouting match with an emphasis on trying to inspire Jaune to carry out the will of Iosif.
"Then what are you going to do, Jaune?!"
"I'm going to ask Pyrrha to dance with me!"
"Fuck that! Do something more you damn idiot! Are you a man?!" Jaune nodded furiously, a fire has been lit, it's going to be hard to stop him. "Then show it to me, you thin-skinned son of a bitch! Ura!"
"Ura!"
"Louder! Be the best Soviet man Mother Russia will ever see! Say it with me-"
""Uuuuuuuraaaaaaaa!""
Jaune stomped over to the door and slammed it open with excessive force, making the hinges literally fly off due to the sudden swing and he marched over to the rooftop where he had left Pyrrha. His eyes were of a hawk, his stature poised and confident.
He was filled with determination.
"Is he going to be okay?" Ren asked.
"Yes." Iosif wanted to shed a tear. "Make Mother Russia proud, Jaune."
