Weiss Schnee

"Pardon...?" She blinked as the words repeated in her head... surely she had misheard him... she clutched the pendant hanging from her necklace, gripping it tightly.

Ozpin sighed, but nodded, choosing to repeat himself. "I have Ruby's first mission prepared. She will be on a team with her fellow newly appointed Hunters... I believe you've met them already. Jaune Arc, Velvet Scarlatina, and Emerald Sustrai." The pit in Weiss's stomach grew as he spoke... she hadnt misheard him. "-The mission will be a simple trip over to one of our forts close to the Atlas border. We've recently lost contact with them, but this is a regular occurrence. I'm choosing to send Ruby as she can both massively shorten the travel time for her team, as well as properly repair communications while there."

That... made sense. Logically it made perfect sense. Scrying Orbs were only so effective over large distances unless you had a gigantic one like in Weiss's office. You could easily contact someone anywhere in Vale from inside the city with a handheld sized one, but range-extender stations were needed at forts spread throughout the region to communicate with the capital.

"I... I understand... how long do you believe the mission will take?" Her words were coming out with a softer tone then she usually allowed herself to dip into around Ozpin... but this was a special exception.

"It should take no longer then a day if your wife is as keen to remain by your side as you are hers." He took a sip of his coffee with that and she nearly froze the entire gardens over in retort to his comment.

"You really need to watch your words." Frankly she was not in a good mood, and his sass was only going to escalate things.

"She's been a Hunter for weeks Weiss... do you expect me to not give her missions forever-?" He froze and his eyes went wide with what she could assume was the closest thing he had felt to fear in a while. Her confusion towards his fear was evident, but it faded as she felt a warm presence move behind her chair and gently lay their hands on her shoulders. She flinched slightly, but calmed as the scent from her necklace got oh so much stronger... from a different source now however.

"I believe you should be calling my wife either 'your Majesty' or 'your Highness'." Ruby's voice was a sweet gift to Weiss's ears, and one she had certainly not been expecting.

"Why did she show up now of all times...?"

Not that Weiss was complaining... rather it was quite the convenient timing. Ruby seemed to answer her question as she moved to join her, taking the seat right beside Weiss. She slowly reached a hand over and gently layed it over Weiss's own that was still griping the pendant tightly.

"Glad to know this works at least." She gave Weiss a knowing wink and the Queen blushed gently, but slowly smiled regardless.

"I activated the alarm accidentally... she was here so quickly..."

"Where were you exaclty...?" She whispered the words, a private sentence meant only for her.

"Oh... I was in the workshop." Weiss chuckled and leaned forward, kissing Ruby for but a moment before sitting back properly in her chair.

"Ozpin has a mission for you. I expect you to do it well." Her sudden attitude change had confused Ozpin, but he didn't complain as he started explaining the details to Ruby.

How many hallways had Ruby just zipped through? What important work had she just left behind at the drop of a hat? All because Weiss had accidentally used the pendant? She stared at her wifes focused expression and let the two play out their conversation.

"If I really need you... I know you'll always be there for me... No matter what."

Ruby Schnee

"Ok... I have everything... I think... did I pack my toothbrush...? Yeah... yeah I did... I definitely did... I one hundred percent did. I remember doing that." She continued moving to the docking bay, trying to ignore the anxiety filled voice in the back of head screaming at her to check her backpack just in case she had forgotten to pack it.

She really quickly adjusted Pride to shut that particular worry up.

Sure she wasn't exactly prepared for this... she had only left Vale once since moving here, and that had been for the Blood moon last year. This time was different though, she had a job to do and it shouldn't take that long anyway. Just a day at most right...?

Just a day.

"Ugh... I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight am I..."

Weiss was way too snuggly for her own good... or Ruby's good.

She stepped out onto the air dock and smiled, her team was already ready. Of course, teams weren't exactly a set in stone kind of thing for Hunters... they just generally stuck to the same group once the higher ups found out who worked well together. Though technically Ruby was higher up then any of the 'higher ups' so she could probably just decide who she wanted her team to be for any mission...

Thoughts for later however, as the team she had today sported no complaints from the Queen Consort!

Weiss was in a meeting right now. Apparently she didn't want to see Ruby off, something about probably not being able to let her go if she had to watch? Ruby sort of got it... having to fly away with Weiss watching would be painful...

She shook her head. She needed to keep her head on straight today, they had a mission to do and the sooner it was done, the sooner Ruby could be home. Already waiting for her was the other members of her team, they stood sort of awkwardly on the air dock, mostly because there wasn't a ship waiting for them.

"They're in for a fun surprise."

Ruby smirked as she got closer and waved her hand. "Sup team Rejuvenate!" Jaune let out a sigh as she spoke, nodding his head.

"So thats what 'R J V E' is meant to be..." Jaune had a simple travel pack with him as well, his armour was probably inside of it, since he was only wearing some light travel clothes for now. Everyone looked dressed pretty standard, no magic items to be detected besides their bags of course.

Carry bags as they were so accurately named. They had decently sized pocket dimensions inside and were meant for transport of magical and non-magical material. All the things contained inside could still be easily detected by barriers and the such, but an added benefit was that any magic items inside couldnt be bonded to a person while in use.

"So, when is the airship showing up?" Emerald was starting to open up a bit more... it was funny, Ruby could tell she was probably used to a more hostile environment. Before she had started opening up, it was like she was purposefully being way too nice in order to cancel out how she really wanted to act. Where she was now was a nice middle ground.

"Oh. There isn't an airship." She casually took her bag off and handed it to Jaune before pushing them all one by one to stand near each other. She had a smile on the whole time, but only Velvet had seemingly figured out the plan before Ruby said anything.

"Ruby you can't be serious-" The faunas was interrupted when Ruby casually tossed a small device above them. The almost orb shaped contraption activated and formed a solid barrier around the group excluding Ruby.

Jaune poked the wall from inside and frowned. "Please tell me air can still come in through this..."

"Yep!" Ruby's voice was excited as she stretched. "This is what it's meant for afterall!" She smirked as her body dissolved into rose petals that begun to swarm around the barrier. Coalescing and reforming into a great red figure standing face on with the barrier, she spread her full-sized wings and let out an almost yawn. Which probably looked pretty intimidating coming from a full Dragon.

"Ruby no!" Emeralds words were cut off as she grabbed the ball with her front legs, luckily she actually had five digits on each claw so grabbing it was pretty easy. She tensed her back legs and with a flap of her wings they were all shot into the sky.

Dragons had come up with this system long before either Rose Dragon had ever been born. Transporting people in Dragon form was a pretty logical idea given the massive size of it. But the issues of their speed creating too much wind for anyone to reasonably hold on well, and of course how embarrassing wearing a saddle would be... well, this was the found solution.

They didn't weigh much of anything in Ruby's hold. She was practically flying just like normal... though normal was a strange idea to think of. She had only flown in this form twice so far, and neither of which was she in control... the first being when she initially transformed, and the second being when Rory had control over her.

Soaring through the sky felt liberating, it made her feel free really. The wind passing past her scales and her wings pushing air like it was nothing, it was a feeling she doubted one could get used to.

Not that her travel companions looked to be too excited about it. They couldn't feel the wind from inside the barrier, and the barely visible yellow hue of the sphere was all that separated them from being in Ruby's hold and falling hundreds of metres to the ground.

"If you look to your left, you'll see Amity Colosseum!" Multi-target telepathy was actually pretty difficult to use, but something she had practised extensively for the mission. Her only response from her passengers was a middle finger from Emerald which they all had a chuckle about.

The floating structure wasn't one that had to be pointed out anyway as they passed it. Even in her full form she was only roughly thirty metres long, nothing compared to the gigantic arena in size.

Approaching the edge of the city, she mentally gulped as the barrier came in view... sure she could pass through it without an issue, but if they others hadn't been properly keyed into it for this mission...

"Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Her mental sweating stopped as they passed through the city's edge without issue, and she took a deep breath of the outside world... yeah it didn't smell much different.

Still the views were amazing as always. Forests as far as the eye could see, Plains and mountains in the distance as an exciting prospect to pass later... hell she could already spot some Grimm far off in some of those Plains... Not that they were here for that anyway, and her telescopic vision wasn't exaclty doing a great job of communicating to her exaclty how far away that was from the city.

But, since they were outside the walls now...

Her wings exploded with motion and they shot forward even faster, picking up speed at an incredibly rapid pace. Now that she was clear of the barrier, she didnt have to move at a slower speed for it to properly register their souls.

The ground far beneath them passed quickly, looking straight down the trees seemed to meld into one another and the fields all looked like a static colour. Looking straight ahead made things seem much more normal down there however.

"Welp, imma nap." She nearly laughed at Jaune for saying that, but true to his word he layed down against the curve of the barrier using his own bag as a pillow and closed his eyes.

Velvet and Emerald started talking about random things that came to mind, at one point even something about their apparent 'crushes'. Ruby would have joined in the conversation but... well, she was happily married with a kid on the way. Didn't feel like a conversation meant for her to join in.

Besides, hearing Velvet try her best to describe Coco without actually giving away that it was her - and failing - and hearing about Emeralds apparently raven haired crush made the flight more interesting for a while.

"She's definitely not describing Whitley... is their marriage arranged...?"

The flight wasn't boring when they stopped talking though. Rather it just meant that she had to concentrate more on spotting any Grimm that decided to attack them...

Though this high up and with this much power concentrated in one place, they actually remained unchallenged for the whole journey. The flight led long into the night, but three of them had night vision, so only Jaune was left stressing about any Grimm suddenly sneaking up on them.

Velvet put him to sleep again to solve that issue.

"Though thinking about it... I guess Jaune would be the best Grimm killer here..."

Surely Holy Magic would work wonders against the creatures?

"Ruby, I think I see the fort." After roughly seven hours of flying, Velvets words were music to Ruby's ears... though she had seen the structure earlier, she just wasn't too sure it had been the right one.

"So uh... is this gonna be a bumpy landing?" The caution in Emeralds voice made Ruby oh so tempted to start a divebomb... but she decided to spare the Vampire from such a fate. With a slow decent they touched down in the courtyard of the fort, and Ruby slowly let go of the barrier.

They each started stretching after the flight, Ruby herself remaining in her full form for the time being. Afterall, the people stationed here probably weren't expecting a Dragon... if they suddenly attacked her thinking she was a threat, her scales should repel any damage.

The fort itself was pretty simple in design. Grey bricks walls surrounded a courtyard with a large tower like structure built into one side of the wall opposite the gate. Ruby could already see the range extender at the top of the tower, but she was in no mood to go check it straight away... sleep sounded so much better then that at the moment.

Jaune moved over to the tower and checked the old wooden door, unsurprisingly it was locked. He knocked and after a painfully long time of waiting, concluded that there was either no one inside, or they all thought that the new arrivals were enemies.

Velvet raised her hand and shot a green flare into the sky, the specifc variation Hunters used for support required. After a little while, the door quickly opened and then closed, a single guard having presumably been thrown out there to talk to them.

"S-state your business!" They all wordlessly agreed that this man had clearly not volunteered to come out here. Velvet approached first, since she was probably the most friendly of them, while Ruby changed back to her base form and grabbed her bag from Jaune.

"We're new recruits in Vale's Hunters. We were sent here to check on your communication systems, Vale has been unable to reach you for a few days." Velver was honestly too cute sounding for her own good, even speaking fully seriously the guard appeared to be more enamoured then relieved.

"O-oh. Of course... umm... how long should repairs take?" Ruby was letting Velvet handle the talking for now while she grabbed her cloak out of her bag. Jaune had moved over to help Velvet with talking and Emerald had seemingly swapped positions with him, moving over to Ruby.

"Hey-" She whispered which was confusing for Ruby at first. "-This seem a bit off to you?"

Ruby titled her head, but Emerald actually seemed worried for once so she took it seriously. She threw her cloak on and looked around the courtyard, glancing over the tower, the stables, the guard...

"No horses... no carts..." Her own whispers trailed off as she thought about the guards behaviour... sure anyone would probably be nervous about a Dragon suddenly showing up... but they had passed through the forts barrier just fine which meant they were friendly-

"Wait..."

She glanced up at the sky and focused her eyes... but all she could see was the night sky, the clouds, the moon, the stars filling the black sky... there was no tinge of colour that should be present in a fort like this thanks to a barrier... Vale's own barrier was a much higher level then normal so it was fully invisible but...

"We didnt pass through a barrier..." Emeralds eyes widened at her words and she casually took her bag off and reached inside, probably getting a weapon ready. Ruby herself grabbed her own magic items... the Titans Bracelet slipped onto her arm, and a Silver Cross like charm was attached to her belt.

With a concentrated look up at the range extender on top of the tower... Emeralds suspicion was all but confirmed. It wasn't even malfunctioning... it was turned off.

"Well, you can stay in the barracks till you're finished-" The guard stopped as Ruby approached, his eyes locked on her like she was a threat.

"Can you take me to Commander Arc?" Her words spawned a good amount of confusion in both Jaune and Velvets expressions, but they were smart enough to not comment or question it before the guard spoke.

"Oh, Commander Arc is resting-" Emerald was on him before he even finished speaking, having moved in behind him and already holding a blade to his throat. Her weapons were long daggers with a slight curve in there design.. not magical though.

Velvet took a step back, but Jaune immediately took his bag off and started getting his armour out and putting it on, moving quickly and not wasting time. Ruby rested her hand on Velvets shoulder and gave her a soft smile before turning to the now captured guard, transforming into her half state and frowning.

"There... isn't a Commander Arc is there...?" The 'guards' words were full of less fear then Ruby expected, it was actually more disappointment then anything.

"This fort dosent even have a Commander, let alone a member of the Arc Family." Her voice was stronger then usual, her presence radiating strength and authority to the man... she was just doing her best to emulate Weiss's 'Queen voice'. "Who are you? Who's inside this fort?"

"As if I'd tell you-" Emeralds grip around him tightened and he audibly squealed a bit in fear, which Ruby had to attempt to not laugh at.

"That's fine. We can just tie you up, beat all your friends, then ask you again." Ruby pulled the barrier device from earlier out of her bag and quickly fiddled with it before nodding to Emerald. She kicked the guard forward and Ruby casually tossed it at him while stepping aside. The device activated and surrounded the man in a barrier, though smaller then before. "That'll last an hour, but that should be more then enough time."

She turned to the tower door and cracked her knuckles with a sigh... she doubted there would be anyone strong enough in there to actually pose a threat to even her, the rest of the team was frankly overkill.

"Do we have a plan?" Velvet was the most cautious of them, but Ruby simply gave her a smile.

"Nah, we're just gonna go in and solve the problem." The only issue they probably could encounter was if the people stationed here had been killed... But Ruby would cross that bridge only if they came to it. With a casual walk forward and a kicking of the door - which resulted in the hinges flying off rather then the door simply opening like expected - they entered.