Ah~
This year's Grom will be unforgettable for some.
The perils~
The fears~
The handholding~
The dancing -OH! The wonderful dancing she had with her as they gracefully interweaved their magic with their choreography to defeat the monster that is Grometheus the Fear Bringer (more commonly known as Grom).
It truly was magical in more ways than one.
Thankfully, she didn't need to worry about her own fears coming true as the one she wanted to ask out was the one who invited her instead. No rejections, no name reveals, no awkward letters. Nada.
Amity Blight once thought that as long as the only conundrum she's dealing with is the one and only Luz Noceda the human, the rest of her life isn't going to derail into mystery and unpredictability.
That was until she opened the door to her bedroom only to be greeted by the sight of a red cloak with black legs lying down on her floor… And a four-legged creature just sitting beside it, guarding the body.
"Huh…" Was all Amity greeted the situation with as she shut the door behind her and stared at the two creatures.
She was sure that her older siblings Ed and Em were out for the entire day, so they couldn't have left this for a prank.
Her parents were downstairs in the basement, busying themselves with potential projects for Blight Industries.
Intruder? Maybe. But how did it bypass all the Abominations around the house? And why does it look like it's sleeping or something?
Amity takes a step closer to get a good look at what she now recognizes is a dog. The dog suddenly stands on all its legs and…
GRRRRRRR…
Growls at her. Amity reflexively puts her hands up as a show of good intention.
"I'm not here to hurt you or your friend," Amity reassures calmly as she stares at it's eyes. Kneeling down, Amity puts down one of her hands on the floor and bows her head, now avoiding eye contact. As the dog slowly makes its way to Amity's hand and sniffs it, the dog wags its tail and licks her hand. Amity has proven herself as an ally, not that it was hard to persuade the dog in the first place.
"That actually kind of tickles," Amity giggles as she starts scratching the dog's chin with one hand and rubbing the dog's back with the other.
This dog is really hairy and fluffy.
Amity shifts her sight to the lying mass of red cloth and black legs, "I think I should help your friend."
The dog seems to agree as it starts backing away from Amity and pulls on the red hood, revealing a person's head underneath.
"Oh… Okay then."
Amity starts carrying the body.
THUD!
…
WHUMP!
…
CREAK~
Well, trying to carry the body. Amity only ends up haphazardly dragging it near her bed, "dear Titan! You're heavy."
Amity lets go and considers what she can use.
A few knocks on her door followed by some inhuman groaning broke her concentration.
Oh, that's right, I asked an abomination to bring me some water.
That's when an idea came to her.
"Abomination…"
After removing the cloak from the unconscious girl and gently setting her down on the bed, the butler abomination courteously offers Amity a small basin with a melting ice block and a wet towel.
"You aren't a palisman of some kind, are you? You're an unusual size for one."
The dog tilts its head curiously at the question, as if somehow understanding her. Amity sits down on the floor and rolls the dog around playfully to search for any interlocks on its paws.
Correction, his paws. Amity has now found out that the dog's a male.
No interlock. But she did notice the red collar with a gold pendant. Upon checking it out, Amity sees that the pendant has a vertical black bone accompanied by two red dots.
A brand of some sort? A symbol?
Checking the back of the pendant, Amity now sees a word engraved on it.
ZWEI
"Z-way? Z-why?"
Bark!
"Alright, Zwei, I'm guessing that's your name?"
Zwei starts licking Amity's face.
"Urgh! Zwei, no."
He slightly whimpers, Amity just continues rubbing his belly gently, "Just anywhere but the face, please."
Bark!
Zwei barks happily in response.
Gently brushing the dog aside, Amity stands up to grab the ice-cold wet towel from the basin and place it on the unconscious girl's forehead after realizing that the girl received a pretty vicious bump on the forehead.
Probably concussed. Wonder what she rammed into…
After making sure that the patient suffered no other visible injuries, Amity grabs a nearby chair to sit on and just watches over the sleeping girl on her bed, carefully observing her as well.
Black boots with red laces, black collared blouse but red on her long sleeves, black skirt with red frills, black belt. Her belt has a silver… Fiery(?) flower as her buckle, and what are these metal vials?
She then glances up to her face.
Surprisingly fair skin and black hair up until her neck-! Wait a second...
Upon leaning closer and gently bringing the girl's hair closer to her, she notices that it becomes even more red near the tips. Almost like underlayers or undertones.
Is she a goth or something? She's pretty much sporting red and black all over.
Amity was about to relax back to her chair when she caught a quick glance of the girl's ears.
Round, unlike Amity's.
Round, like Luz's.
…
…
Wait-!
Standing up from her chair in surprise and backing away all of a sudden, she starts panicking.
"A… A human… S-She's another human!"
This is bad, I have a human in my house and it's not Luz!
She nearly trips over a resting Zwei behind her, who was alerted by her outburst and stood at the ready, prompting Amity to apologize to him, "oh, sorry about that, just… Didn't realize sooner."
I now have another human who crashed into my room with a dog… What will Ed and Em think? What will my parents think?! What will…
The last thought freezes Amity in place.
What will Luz think…
Amity shakes her head vigorously to shake off the question.
"There's no way Luz is gonna judge me for that, she probably doesn't even realize how I feel about her," Amity rambles out loud in an attempt to convince herself, "which is kinda sad-! But it works, yes! That's right, I can just calmly explain to her that another human mysteriously crashed into my bedroom and I just… Nursed… Her… Oh, for Titan's sake, I need help."
Bark! Bark!
Zwei cheerfully distracts Amity by running around her, panting and playing with her feet while dragging around the girl's cloak as if it was his. Amity calms down a bit and just pets Zwei by the head.
"I'm usually not a dog person, but I like you."
Amity then looks back to the bold red cloak the girl was wearing upon her arrival and takes it from Zwei. She only meant to fold it and set it on her table, but her mirror incited her to do otherwise.
Wonder if it looks good on me…
Amity drapes the entire thing on her back and fastens the cross-shaped clips of the cloak to pin the hood to her shoulders. Looking at her back, Amity concludes that if she tried walking around, the hood would sweep her trails with how long it is.
Too big… Oh well.
Looking at the mirror, Amity tries swiping and waving her hands in the air as if trying to perform certain spells and poses with the cloak swishing about. Accompanied by some imaginary scenarios.
"Back off!"
"Stay away from them."
"Ready for a rematch?"
"Are you okay?" Amity practices looking behind her while wearing the cloak.
Feeling the flap of the cloak as she pumps her fists forward, Amity takes a moment to twirl around.
Looks neat. But the color's not for me… Maybe a darker or a cooler one.
Suddenly, Amity hears groaning from her side. Forgetting to take off the cloak, she picks up an excited Zwei and they watch the girl stir awake.
And then the girl starts muttering some things, Amity isn't sure what she's saying at all but she did hear one name.
"… Zwei?"
The dog being called barks in response. The girl finally opens her eyes and blinks a few times. Amity inhales in awe.
Whoa… Silver eyes… That suits her…
The girl turns to her left and calls out, "Ugh… Uh… Dad?"
Amity and Zwei don't reply yet.
The girl turns to her right and mutters to Amity, "Uncle … "
It was supposed to be a name, but it kinda came out a little garbled on Amity's end so she can't help but ask, "Uh… Who?"
The girl blinks a few more times before realizing that she's talking to a stranger. Her eyes widen in surprise and her reflexes kick in. Pumped by adrenaline, the girl abruptly sits up, unknowingly flinging the wet towel from her forehead to the floor, and starts transforming into a blurry mass of black and red before zooming out of the bed and onto the far corner of Amity's room, leaving red flower petals in her tracks. Fully standing up and seemingly ready to fight.
The girl's surprise also gets Amity jumping, Amity tucks Zwei under her arm and starts drawing a magic circle with her other hand.
The girl keeps a straight and focused face as she reaches for something behind her, "Who are you?"
But before Amity could introduce herself in the next instant, the girl expresses fear as she gasps and her eyes widen in vulnerability before looking at her back, "OH NO! CRESCENT ROSE!"
The girl then proceeds to resort to close-quarters combat, bending her knees and raising her hands up as if they were blades instead of fists.
Amity takes the opportunity to generate a fireball from her magic circle, holding it carefully to not accidentally launch it at her. The girl looks at the fireball and is taken in by a small wonder, "Whoa…"
Looks like it works. How do I break it to her…
This peace does not last very long though as the girl's eyes travel from the fireball to Zwei hidden behind Amity and the cloak. Remembering the situation she's in, she keeps her knife-hands up firmly and glares threateningly, "what are you doing to my dog?!"
Uh oh.
"I, uh…-!" Amity tries to reply.
"And why are you wearing my cloak?!"
"This isn't… I-I wasn't-!"
"Are you… Robbing me?"
"Wha- NO! I'm not doing anything bad, I promise!" Amity hisses as she dispels the fireball and puts her hand up in surrender, taking a deep breath before continuing, "I don't want to cause a scene, you're not safe here."
The girl furrows her brows even more, clearly not convinced at Amity's response.
"Look… I can explain, but I need you to trust me and keep your voice down."
Amity kneels down to let Zwei go and unfasten the cloak from her shoulders. Zwei runs up to the girl no problem and jumps to her, to which she picks him up and snuggles him. Zwei starts licking the girl's face in response.
Amity walks up to the girl and hands her the red cloak, "sorry about wearing it, just thought it'd look good on me. I was planning to set it on the table a while ago."
"And my dog?" The girl follows up as she sets Zwei down and takes the cloak, securing it on her shoulders instead.
"Zwei's protective, but very friendly. Tried to lick my face once."
"Yeah, he likes to do that… Wait, you know his name?"
"I looked at his collar."
"Right. Forgot. Hehe… What happened to me?"
"I don't know either, I just came back home and found you passed out in my bedroom. It looked like you hit your head too hard when I checked on you. I was planning on asking YOU that question."
"Oh, really now?" The girl asked curiously, but then blinked twice before touching her forehead as if she recalled such a thing happening. Surprisingly, Zwei barked twice while sitting beside Amity to vouch for her. Accepting the answer, the girl looked to her right and saw the wet towel she accidentally dropped. She picks it up and hands it back to Amity apologetically, "thanks. I'll explain later. Sorry for scaring you… What's your name?" She asks.
"Amity. Amity Blight. And you are?"
"Ruby Rose. Nice to meet you," the girl, Ruby, smiles as she stretches out her hand and shakes it with Amity's.
It's almost as if Amity has a running gag of running into humans lately. It's almost creeping her out.
Oh, speaking of which.
Ruby takes a moment to fully recognize the girl in front of her. Amity Blight. A pale girl with golden eyes and two-toned hair, mainly aquamarine but brown at the roots. Ponytail hair. Triangle-shaped earrings. Pointy ears. Black nail polish. Probably younger than her…
WAIT!
Ruby suddenly gasps, "your ears!"
Amity raises her hands towards both ears and realizes what Ruby is talking about, "oh… Yeah, they're pointy."
"Are you… A faunus?" Ruby asks.
"A faw...Noose? I don't know what you mean by that… But I am a witch, if you've ever heard of it."
"A witch? Like… Magic-witch? Fairy-tale-witch? Witch-witch?"
Amity nods to each of Ruby's questions.
"So the fireball that you just did was magic and not some special ability you have?"
A furrowing of confused eyebrows accompanies Amity's nod of a head, before continuing, "I don't really have a special ability… I do specialize in a specific track of magic though."
Amity brings in a cauldron filled halfway with a mud-like substance, Ruby leans in to see that the sludge is purple of various unmixed shades and seems to be lifeless.
That is until Amity drew magic circles in the air with both hands and slowly raised her hands upward, followed by an appropriately uttered phrase, "abomination, rise."
Slowly, sluggishly, the sludge stirs itself into a rising mass that parts into three heads, before taking a very humanoid shape, with very recognizable features such as the middle head forming eye sockets and a mouth while the other two 'heads' at its side become arms with clearly defined fingers. The new abomination carefully walks out of the cauldron and stares at Ruby with yellow orbs.
Ruby steps back in astonishment before basking at the spectacle before her. Her silver eyes widen like windows in awe as stars sparkle from them and her jaw slightly drops.
"Woooow~"
In the next instant, Ruby jumps up and exclaims as she waves her hands in the air, "THAT. IS. AMAZING!"
"SSSHHHH!" Amity hushes Ruby. Ruby covers her mouth with both hands before giggling in excitement and whispering away.
"It can fight, right?! Do you just summon them or can you do something else?! What other magic can you do?! Can I do that too?!"
Amity rubs the back of her head sheepishly as she chuckles from the praise. She sends the abomination back from the cauldron before answering the questions one by one, "w-well, yeah, it can fight. I haven't tried anything else yet, maybe my track will teach us next year. There's a lot of magic spells around and…"
The last question pauses Amity and has her recalling Luz, her eagerness to learn magic despite being a human and the childlike innocence she radiates alongside the fighting bravado… Now that Amity thinks about it, this Ruby Rose is nearly another Luz Noceda. Maybe an older version.
Heat rushes to her cheeks and she vigorously shakes her head.
Get it together, Amity! Don't you start-!
"And…?" Ruby asks as she tilts her head, concern etched into her eyes when Amity looks back to her.
And another idea pops into her head.
She clears her throat and gives her answer, "And I know someone who could help you out. I can't keep you here. But maybe I should bring you over to a human… Friend of mine. We could talk some more there than here."
The specific use of the word human catches Ruby off-guard and has her asking, "human? You say that as if we're not really common…"
"Well, yeah, you did pop into the Boiling Isles, one of the most popular places in the Demon Realm, filled with witches, demons, and many more." Amity announces as she opens her bedroom door and ushers Ruby and Zwei out quietly.
Demon Realm… This is the first time I've ever heard of that…
Zwei barks at Ruby, who picks him up and follows Amity outside, "Zwei… Wherever we are, I hope Yang and the others are okay, we have to find them quickly. Who knows what could happen."
…
…
Meanwhile, somewhere far from where Ruby and Amity are…
"Ugh… What… Happened?" A girl groans awake as she takes in the dark blue sky and passing clouds, she clenches her left hand to feel the ribbon attached to her weapon. She moves her right hand to feel the bladed sheath of her weapon and some snow.
Wait…
And some snow…
She sits upright and clutches the snow in her palm.
"Where… Am I?" She asks herself, her cat ears curling inwards as she nearly shivered from both the sudden cold and the worry.
NOTES:
I completely forgot to specify that this story takes place after RWBY V2 but before V3 & TOH S1 EP16