The day continued quietly for Ruby, she sat in one of Professor Ports lectures and quickly remembered why she had dreaded his classes. He was so boring, plain and simple. While Ruby couldn't deny the feats he talked about were nothing short of amazing, the way he retold them was just terrible. Ruby quickly found herself finding anything else to do. She began going over some of the files that Ozpin had given her on the exchange students. Some she immediately recognized, Sun was still here, as was Neptune. There were a few others that she didn't recognize so she bookmarked them and made a note to figure out who they were. She continued to pour through the files all during ports lecture and only took a brief break before Glynda's combat class. This was one class she payed attention too, especially if one of her suspects were on the floor. She also saw her old classmates had improved somewhat, though the most drastic change was by far with Jaune, who was actually winning fights now.
"Very good mister Arc, mister Bronzewing I would recommend you ask him to give you some pointers on swordsmanship." Glynda said as the two walked off the stage, "now that was all the assigned matches for today and we still have some time, so if anyone would like to volunteer?" Immediately Yang's hand shot up.
"I volunteer as tribute!" Ruby could practically hear Weiss facepalm. She couldn't help but chuckle, some things never change. Glynda let out a sigh.
"Very well miss Xiao Long, is there anyone who wants to volunteer as her opponent?" Glynda asked.
"Actually Ms. Goodwitch," Yang interrupted her, "can I pick my opponent?" Glynda gave her a suspicious look but nodded.
"If they agree to it, yes" Glynda answered.
"Hey Shae you up for a spar?" Yang shouted up to Ruby.
'Crap, I should have thought about this' Ruby berated herself, I can easily defeat Yang, but can Azure?' as she thought about this two new thoughts emerged. 'If I go all out will the spy recognize me as Summers? If I take a hit will anyone question why the girl who's entire color scheme is blue has a red aura?' against her better judgement Ruby nodded and went to the floor.
"Cool, you ready for this Shae?" Yang asked her, and Ruby made up her mind she couldn't go full strength but she couldn't get hit either. She would be the real untouchable girl, no cheating with polarity. She whispered a command to Penny to release just two swords, which Ruby promptly grabbed to give the impression that she was drawing them from some sort of concealment holster.
"I'm always ready Xiao Long." Ruby answered her cooly. Yang smirked and put herself in a ready stance.
"Begin!" Glynda called. Yang immediately lunged at Ruby, who promptly jumped back. Even if she was more than capable of taking Yang out she needed to do it without going all out and without her semblance, and Yang was still very strong. Ruby looked deep down to once again find that familiar cold that served her so well in the Redemption Corpse. When she looked at Yang again her eyes were a sharp as the steel in her hand. She switched her swords into pistol form and fired at Yang. Yang brought her gauntlets up and expertly deflected each shot.
'Great, she's gotten better at blocking' Ruby thought sarcastically. Yang then pointed her gauntlets behind her and used the recoil to jump to where Ruby was. As Yang threw a punch Ruby quickly shifted her weapons back into swords and as she ducked under Yang's fist, she jabbed them forward leaving two shallow cuts on the Aura of Yang's torso. Yang countered by trying to kick Ruby, but she stepped to the right while flipping her right hand sword around so it was in a backhand, and leaving yet another shallow cut in her sister's Aura. Yang then went for a roundhouse kick, and Ruby rolled under it while sliding her blade along Yang's shin.
'How does the Goliath die?' Ruby thought, 'by a thousand cuts.' The fight continued like this for a while, with Ruby evading and leaving little cuts on Yang, until Yang's hair exploded on fire.
'Ah, she's angry now,' Ruby thought 'good people get stupid when they're angry' she let the familiar cold wash over her again and readied herself to dodge whatever frantic attack would be Yang's next. However Ruby knew something was wrong in the next moment when Yang turned around and her eyes switched from the telltale red into her normal lavender. Ruby suddendly realised that Yang had learned to control her anger yet keep the strength her semblance lent her. She was almost too late when Yang raised her fist, and slammed it into the ground. Ruby threw one of her blades behind her, not really caring where it landed and yanked on the wire to quickly pull her away from the shockwave. It worked but Yang was on her in a second, and with her blade embedded fairly deep into the arena wall she was left with one sword. Yang threw another punch and Ruby was forced to catch it on her sword. Her options limited, Ruby once again drew on the cold hard determination she had fostered in the Corpse to simply win. Pumping all the Aura she could into her hand she punched Yang right in the throat. It wouldn't kill Yang because of her Aura but it did cause her to lose her breath. While Yang was still choking for air, Ruby moved behind her and switched her remaining sword into a pistol and fired several times into the back of Yang's head.
"That's enough!" Glynda called, stopping the fight, "miss Xiao Long's Aura is in the red." Ruby nodded and went about recovering her sword from the wall.
"Well done miss Azure," Glynda said, "miss Xiao Long while the shockwave you used was a good idea perhaps you should consider the various places you leave open when you fight another close combat opponent." Yang nodded as she recovered her breath, "and while I don't condone playing dirty in an arena match," she paused to look at Ruby, "Remember that neither criminals nor the grimm will 'play fair,' now is there anyone else who would like a match?" Ruby began to walk back to her seat, but was suddenly caught by the same blonde who she had just faced.
"Hey come sit with my team, nobody should be sitting alone." Yang said while putting an arm over her shoulder.
"If that was your way of asking I think you need to rethink your social approach." Ruby told her. Yang laughed and Ruby went to hang out with her at one time team.
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After looking over the profiles of the exchange students she couldn't find anything wrong with them, which meant she was going to have to meet each of them to try and narrow down her suspect list. She spent the rest of the week doing just that. So far she had three left to meet and none of them had screamed out 'enemy spy' if she couldn't find anything in meeting them she would have to do an in depth search of each and every students history. That would be incredibly time consuming as they were almost all from different kingdoms, and some had a history over multiple kingdoms. And so she approached her next unwary suspect, Raven Evergreen. The girl was short with black hair in a twintail style, and green eyes. Her entire clothing setup was black with white accents. Ruby approached the girl with her usual story.
"Hi! My name's Azure, and I'm heading around talking with the Beacon students to try and get an idea of what being a huntress in vale is like can you talk for a bit?" the girl looked at Ruby smiled and fished her scroll out of her pocket.
Can't talk, not a Beacon student, sorry the girl typed on the screen. Ruby nodded and acted surprise.
"Oh sorry, I don't know who's a Beacon student or not yet." Ruby said. The girl smiled and turned and walked away. As Ruby watched her go she felt something off. She knew that smile, but where had she seen it before. She had never met this girl in her time at Beacon, she would have remembered a mute student, so where had she seen her before. Deciding that it needed further investigation she waited until the next days classes to begin. She then went to the registered dorm room for Evergreen.
"Penny unlock the door." Ruby whispered into her earpiece. She soon her the telltale click from the door that signaled her friend had completed her task. There was nothing inside the room that screamed spy. The floor and beds were littered with all kinds of colorful stuffed animals, clothing of all sorts, though most of it was rather racy, was strewn all over the floor. In one corner was an umbrella that caught Ruby's eye for some reason. Ruby went over and looked at the umbrella, she quickly found a release on the handle that allowed a small blade to slide out.
"Penny, check the files, what is Evergreen's weapon listed as?" Ruby asked into her earpiece. A moment later Penny responded.
"She is listed as a martial artist who specialises in unarmed combat," Penny answered, "she doesn't have a weapon." Ruby was pondering what to do. This wasn't proof but it certainly was suspicious. Ruby was in the middle of this thought when she heard the sounds of students in the hallway. She quickly checked her scroll.
It's only two, classes went till four why were the students walking the hallways? Ruby suddenly remembered that on fridays classes were often let out a couple hours early in anticipation of the weekend. It wasn't official but most of the teachers did it. How could I have forgotten? Have I really been hunting Cinder and Torchwick long enough to forget my time at Beacon? Ruby thought to herself when something finally clicked, 'wait, Torchwick, his assistant who helped him escape in the bullhead, that's where I've seen that smile! Ruby opened the umbrella and sure enough it was the same one that had blocked Yang's shot from connecting with the criminal. As Ruby made this discovery she heard the door open behind her. She turned around and saw a confused looking Evergreen, no, Neo in disguise standing there.
"I knew something was off about you," Ruby began, "but being Neo, Torchwick's right hand girl?" Ruby chuckled, "oh, sorry former right hand girl." at that Neo dropped her disguise and lunged at Ruby, managing to recover her weapon in the process. Penny released a sword for Ruby to use and Ruby struck home right across Neo's midsection. Only to have said person shatter into a thousand tiny shards. At the same time the window behind Ruby shattered and the real Neo jumped from the window to land in the courtyard, three stories down. Ruby, not wanting to test her landing strategy with the new weapon just yet, began to run to the stairs to get down where Neo was.
"Penny get me Annette, and send Ozpin a message to lock down the Airdocks!" Ruby said into her earpiece. As she ran down the hallways the remains of team RWBY as well as team JNPR saw the blue haired girl running at a full, Aura enhanced, sprint.
"Hey Shae, where's the fire?" Yang asked, only to be promptly ignored as Ruby continued finally reached the stairs and practically leaped down them, taking four or five steps at a time.
"Maybe we should go see what's up?" Blake asked the group. They nodded and went after the girl from Atlas. Meanwhile Ruby had gotten a hold of Annette.
"Annette I found the spy, I'm going to try to catch her here, but I want you to get here as quickly as possible!" Ruby practically shouted into her earpiece.
"What? Summers? What happened to low profile?" Annette asked.
"Just get here!" Ruby shouted as she cut the link. As Ruby burst through the door into the courtyard she saw Neo on the other side limping towards the Airdocks. Apparently the three story fall had slowed her down a bit but she was still going to escape if Ruby didn't do something quick.
"NEO!" Ruby shouted, "I'M SUMMERS!" as she said that Neo froze and slowly turned around. "Yeah that's right, it takes a killer to catch a killer, and I'm the best Atlas has." Ruby said, before giving her trump card against the mute, "I'm the one who killed your precious Torchwick!" Neo was furious now, all attempt at escape was forgotten as she drew her weapon and charged towards Ruby. At first Ruby had the advantage because Neo was attacking in blind fury, forgetting to even use her semblance on the specialist. However all it took was Ruby getting a few hits in to cause Neo to regain control of herself and focus on fighting the girl with illusions. Ruby was quickly being struck from whichever angle she seemed to have do defenses on. Sometimes Neo would use an illusion to get Ruby to react to her when she wasn't there, and sometimes she would be there just to keep Ruby constantly guessing.
"Penny twelve swords." Ruby whispered into her earpiece. Ruby herself couldn't control all the swords that Penny could deploy, but Penny could. However without an actual target all Penny could do was swing the swords randomly in an attempt to strike the illusionist. Meanwhile Ruby still had two swords in hand and was trying to find Neo by sound. She had the know how to fight while blind thanks to much of her time in the Redemption Corpse taking place during the Polar night, but unfortunately Neo was too quiet. Not just that she was mute, but Ruby couldn't here footsteps, or heavy breathing, even Neo's weapon displaced so little air when she struck there was nothing for Ruby to find her with. Ruby could feel the exhaustion coming over her as her Aura was being rapidly depleted. As Ruby felt her Aura break she heard another voice on her earpiece.
"Summers I'm on station," Annette called over the comm, "did you catch her yet?" Ruby heard Annette's voice and came up with an idea.
"Annette check your thermals!" Ruby ordered, "I'm fighting an illusionist, tell me who's not standing where they should be!" Less than a second later Annette answered.
"Your three O'clock, she's close!" Ruby bent backwards in time to see the illusion shatter and the needle thin blade pass through the air where her head had been. Ruby flipped her right hand sword into a backhand style and struck Neo across her midsection. This shattered Neo's Aura and sent her skidding back and away from Ruby. Ruby knowing that she was almost out of the fight and that whoever struck next would likely kill the other person gave Annette one more order.
"Annette light her up!" there was no sound of glass breaking, no shards of an illusion as the gunships gatling guns tore into the mute assassin. As the assassin fell Ruby felt consciousness also fail her.
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