Benjamin
I was driving my car, of course. I don't let anyone else drive it, because they might break it.
Except for Jen. There isn't really much I can do to stop her. But usually I take my car to
work so it's not there anyway.
My car is 90s vintage Ford Taurus in dull red. I drove it through the last few years of high
school, but back then it was technically my dad's car. It became mine when I graduated, as
my graduation present. It wasn't a great car, but it did okay. It's pretty well featured for the
time, with A/C, cruise control, and power locks and windows. The biggest problem is that
the V6 engine is a gas guzzling pig.
Jen was sitting beside me in the passenger seat, of course, and Isaac was in the back. Isaac
smelled bad so I didn't like even having him in the car. He gave me a dirty look when I
opened the back windows and only the back windows. I ignored it.
"What are we going to do when we find her?" I asked as we drove up onto the highway.
"We're going to help her find her team," Isaac replied, like it was the most natural thing in
the world.
I pointed out the blatantly obvious. "What if they're not there?"
Isaac suggested, "We can worry about that when we get there."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Jen objected from beside me. "We should really have a
plan."
"Eh, plans are overrated," I said.
"Yeah," Isaac agreed.
"Don't be stupid," Jen snapped. "We're in pretty deep and you know it. We can't just run in
and wing it."
"We can't really make plans if we don't know what we're trying to accomplish," Isaac
pointed out.
"So, let's figure out what we're trying to accomplish, then." Jen paused, exhaling. "Ruby. We
need to find her for sure. That's the first thing we need to do."
"Right, then we've got to find her team-"
She cut Isaac off. "No."
"No?"
"What do you mean, no?" I asked.
"We have to find out what happened to the rest of RWBY," Jen corrected. "We need to know
if they're actually here before we start looking for them."
"And how are we going to do that?" I pointed out. "I mean, we can't really easily prove a
negative case here."
Jen nodded, pressing her lips together in thought. "Okay, you're right. We're going to have to
look for them until we're sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that they aren't here."
"They could be anywhere."
She nodded again. "We're going to assume that they've arrived where Ruby did, or at least
very close to it."
"And if they haven't?"
"We can try putting up posters or Craigslist ads," Isaac suggested.
"Yeah, that's gonna work really well, Isaac," I said sarcastically. "Looking for Yang Shauw
Long, identifiable by long yellow hair, shotgun gauntlets, boobs, and generally looking like
a fictional character. And we can use fanart for the poster, so they really take us seriously!"
"We could say they're cosplayers that got lost," Jen proposed. "In fact, that's probably the
best way to do it. Not sure about the details, but it could work. We'd have to ask if others
had seen them, at any rate."
"Then what?" I asked curtly.
"Either one of two things. If we do find the rest of the team, or they show up at our
doorstep, or someone else finds them and we retrieve them, we give them shelter and
introduce them to our world. If we don't find them, well, I guess we do the same thing for
Ruby alone."
"Then what?" I repeated.
"Then we figure it out then."
"I thought you said-"
"I said we needed a plan," Jen replied. "I was implying a plan for the immediate future. We
need to figure out some things now, but not everything."
"Should we tell Sam and Cliff what we've figured out?" Isaac asked.
Jen shook her head, even though Isaac wouldn't be able to see the motion from behind her.
"No, we don't have to. When we get to where we're going, I'll call them."
"Speaking of where we're going," I said, pointing out the window. We were outside the city,
surrounded by farmers' fields. We were on a fairly wide two-lane road beside the highway,
but there were lots of small roads coming off it.
"There's quite a few roads around here," Isaac noted. "I guess we're going to have to check
them all, huh?"
"Do you know how to do a search pattern?" Jen asked.
I shrugged. "Nope."
She sighed one of those cute sighs. "Start with the next right."
From the back, I heard Isaac mutter, "Sure you don't want to send a text, at least?"
Sam
I tapped my hands on the steering wheel as we sat at the red light. "So..."
"So?" Cliff asked from the passenger seat.
"So... who is this Ruby Rose, anyway?"
He glared at me. "I thought you watched RWBY?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, I did. But I wasn't really paying attention."
"How could you not pay attention?" Cliff exploded. "RWBY is like... pure awesomeness!"
"Honestly, it seemed like any other shitty anime to me. It really wasn't that good," I said,
deliberately baiting Cliff. Honestly, I really hadn't been paying much attention. My opinion
of RWBY was fairly neutral at that point.
"First, RWBY is American and CGI, so it technically isn't anime. Second, how the fuck can
you think RWBY is crap?"
"I didn't say it was crap," I replied offhand. We were on the highway now, and I changed
lanes to pass a particularly slow pickup truck. "I said it wasn't very good."
"What's the difference?"
"Well, crap isn't worth considering, but not very good, well, I guess that means its not worth
considering either."
Cliff huffed. "Okay, tell me what's wrong with RWBY. I can guarantee it's just you being a
complete moron."
Hmm, what should I point out? Ah! "All the characters are kids. And most of them are
girls."
"Well, yeah, it's fundamentally a coming of age story," Cliff replied. Okay, I'll admit, he's
got a point. "In addition to calling back on several very common tropes-"
I cut him off. No way I'm going to concede. "That's the other thing. It can't decide if it wants
to play everything straight, be a deconstruction or a reconstruction."
"You don't have to pick one or the other," Cliff pointed out angrily. "Look at Kill Bill, Kick-
Ass, or Bioshock Infinite. You can use tropes and deconstruct and/or reconstruct them at the
same time, hell, you can even revel in them and deconstruct them!"
"But the setting isn't well developed," I argued. "We hardly know anything at all about
Remnant!"
"It's actually not too bad," Cliff countered. "Until Season 3, the original Star Trek was way
worse. Besides, since when did you give a shit about how well developed a setting is?"
He paused. "Look, it sounds like you just don't like RWBY. You haven't actually pointed out
any fundamental problems with it."
"Hey, I didn't say it was bad, just that I didn't like it."
It probably shouldn't have surprised me that Cliff called me on that. "No, actually, you did
said that it was bad. Or, as you insisted, not very good."
"Yeah, which means I don't like it."
"Well, I'm sorry that RWBY isn't a mindless story about a bunch of meatheads who resolve
a nonsensical plot with lots of shooting and massive explosions." Another one of those
weird Cliff pauses. "Seriously, how the fuck could you like The Expendables?"
"Hey, that movie was awesome!"
"Bullshit! That movie was a steaming pile of shit! And unlike your epic failures of an
argument, I could rip that one to shreds."
I decided that I didn't really want to get stuck in a car with a "debating" Cliff, even though
pushing his buttons was fun sometimes. In fact, this distraction had nearly caused me to
miss the turnoff. "Whatever, back to my original question."
"Which question?" Cliff fumed, sighing deeply.
"Who is Ruby Rose?"
Cliff deadpanned, "The protagonist."
"Yeah, but who is she as a person?"
"Oh, I know what you're asking. She's fifteen, so no. Don't even think about it." I guess this
was Cliff's idea of revenge.
"You're the one with a dirty mind if you're thinking that," I pointed out.
"But I never explicitly stated what I was saying, did I?" Cliff retorted. "Therefore, to make
the assumption that I was making such an assumption, you would have to be making that
assumption as well... or something like that."
We shared a laugh. Just like old times, in a way. "Okay, seriously though, what did you want
to know?"
I was about to reply when I saw a blur of something zip by the window. "There."
"Where?"
"Her." I pointed. "Looks like you were right."
"I told you so," Cliff said smugly. "Park here. There's a big fence about fifty metres that
way, so she'll almost certainly come back this way."
"How do you know that?" I asked, pulling onto the wide dirt shoulder and putting the car in
park. The park brake was broken, so I didn't bother engaging it. It occurred to me that this
was probably illegal, but out in the country I'm not sure if anyone would care.
"Google Earth." Cliff opened his door and stepped out of my car, blinking as the sun hit his
eyes. I shut off the car and followed him out.
"So..." I began, gesturing to the field.
"She'll come back." This time, he pointed to an approaching blur. "See?"
I pointedly checked my watch, then turned to the new arrival.
"I was wondering when you'd show up."