Author's Note: Check the bottom for an exciting news update!
Pyrrha watched helplessly as Qrow disappeared into the crowd, turning the corner and leaving her to face one of the two battles that she had never been able to win; making friends. While many would see that as an exaggeration, and Coco would no doubt make fun of her for it, Pyrrha refused to call it anything but what it was.
She hadn't been good at making friends, her team had been assigned to her and RWBY had come along due to Jaune and Ruby being friends. Even Team CFVY had been unintentional and Pyrrha was still trying to wrap her head around how exactly that had happened.
Steeling her resolve Pyrrha focused on the one thing that would win any fight, a plan.
"So…" Pyrrha struggled to find her voice.
"So…" Yang replied, looking uncertainly at the group Pyrrha had brought with her.
There was a cough from behind Pyrrha, causing her to look back to see Coco watching her. After a moment she coughed again, subtle gesturing to the rest of her team.
"R-right." Pyrrha blushed in embarrassment as she finally realized what her friend was trying to do. "Yang, Ruby, this is Coco, Fox, Yatsuhashi, and Velvet." She gestured to each of them as she spoke. "They're students at Beacon academy."
Ruby's eyes lit up brightly as she looked at the strangers with a newfound interest, Yang's response was far more subtle but she was still clearly impressed. "Really? I'm supposed to start this year."
Coco stepped forward, giving Pyrrha a moment to compose herself and plan out what to say next.
"I figured, you look like the Huntress type." Coco looked the girl up and down. "You certainly have the psyche-"
"A-anyways," Pyrrha interrupted before her friend could finish, chuckling nervously as attention was once again focused on her. "Why don't we get going?"
"Sure." Yang shrugged. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well, um," Pyrrha began to sweat slightly. "The Vale Central Mall?"
"Sounds fun." Yang smiled.
Pyrrha cheered internally. "It's nearby, only a few blocks away." She gestured over her shoulder in the general direction they would be going.
"We've been a few times." Yang replied.
"R-right." Pyrrha winced, remembering they lived on Patch and that the island was only a short Bullhead ride away from the city. "If you'd rather do something else…" what that something else might entail, Pyrrha had no clue.
"No, the mall's fine." Yang assured her. "We haven't been in a couple years, don't get the chance to leave Patch all that often."
Pyrrha nodded before turning and stepping off in the direction they would be going. The awkward silence didn't last long, team CFVY doing exactly what Pyrrha had hoped they would. Coco Fox and Yatsuhashi talking with Yang while Velvet spoke with Ruby, the younger girl looking more than a little uncomfortable, tempting Pyrrha to step in and drag her away until she realized it was just the act of speaking to new people. Something that Pyrrha's presence would help. She trusted Velvet to know what she was doing and after a bit Ruby seemed to open up more.
"Huh, maybe I should pack a parachute then." Yang replied to something Coco had said, despite the humour her face had gone a little pale and she looked a little nervous. It didn't last however, the look of worry naturally slipping from her face. "I appreciate the heads up at least, Uncle Qrow didn't want to tell me what initiation was going to be. Said it was some big secret."
Pyrrha could tell Coco was rolling her eyes, even though she couldn't see them. "Something about thinking on the fly, total crap if you ask me. They spend the first year hammering in the importance of planning."
"Seems a bit counter productive to me." Fox said, shrugging his shoulders. "But hey, I haven't seen anyone complain yet."
Pyrrha groaned internally but didn't comment on his subtle joke, the rest of his team doing the same.
"I'm glad I got the chance to ask then, should make it easier." Yang smiled, her confidence having returned in full.
"Thank Amber, she's the one who brought us with her." Coco nodded in her direction.
Pyrrha smiled back but didn't say anything.
"How'd your initiation go then?" Yang asked.
Pyrrha made to answer, her words freezing in her throat when she remembered that she couldn't be honest. If she gave any real detail then Yang and Ruby would no doubt draw connections between their own initiation. If she lied and tried to make something up Team CFVY would have questions she couldn't answer. Luckily Coco answered for her. "She wasn't there."
Yang looked confused. "I thought everyone had to go through initiation?"
"I was a… special case." Pyrrha winced at the look on Yang's face. There was curiosity, a desire to ask why, but there was also a slight factor of awe that painfully reminded her of her time in Mistral. "A-anyways, I knew you'd have questions about it so I thought bringing them along was a good idea.' It was a lie, one that Coco looked utterly unimpressed by, but Yang didn't seem to notice.
"You knew?"
"Q-Qrow's told me a lot about you." Pyrrha winced, her stutter thankfully going unnoticed.
"Yeah, Qrow has a lot to be proud of." Yang grinned widely, Ruby only huffed. "I don't think he's ever mentioned you though." Ruby elbowed her sister, causing Yang to wince. "Sorry, he doesn't tell us much about anything really… unless he's drunk… or trying to impress us with tales of his 'heroics'." Ruby giggled quietly.
"Qrow does like to drink a lot…" Pyrrha whispered.
"You would know." Coco replied, far louder than a whisper. "You go out with him like every other night."
Pyrrha looked back for half a second, saw Yang's eyes light up and her smile grow to shit eating proportions before locking her head forward and refusing to turn back. Even as she felt the burning in her cheeks and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as Yang watched her closely, waiting for a response.
"It's not always to drink." Pyrrha immediately regretted her choice in wording.
"Oh~" Yang chimed in. "And what do you and my Uncle get up to the rest of the time?"
"They usually fight terrorists." Velvet replied for her, driving Pyrrha's hope of defusing the situation to its death as she could practically hear the two sisters' eyes widen and excitement grow.
"You went on a mission with Uncle Qrow!?" Ruby yelled, those being the first words this Ruby had ever said to her.
"Heh," Pyrrha chuckled weakly. "It was nothing, just… looking into something for the Headmaster."
Coco slid her sunglasses down her nose. "Do you want to tell them about the giant robots or shall I?"
In a burst of rose petals Ruby was suddenly standing in front of her. "You fought a giant robot!?"
Pyrrha didn't know what to say. "I-It was technically a mech?" Those were the wrong words to use. Ruby squealed in excitement.
The Vale Central Mall, contrary to what it's name might have implied, was the only mall in the city. The result was a large multistoried building long enough that it took an hour to walk from one side to the other. It was packed full of hundreds of stores and thousands of people all crowding its interior.
No matter what you were looking for, there was a store selling it. While the floors were usually chain stores and places people would recognize the logos of, the lower areas were rented out spaces for people to sell things or have their own local shop.
Coco usually stuck to the brand names, staying on top of the latest fashion trends wasn't an easy thing, and she couldn't afford to handicap herself by not being willing to pay the slightly higher price. The fact that they were higher quality was also a good argument to be made, even if the difference was only slight. The lower level shops had more Vacuan knock offs than anything authentic. Still, she usually gave it a look just to see if there was anything that caught her eye or that she could make work.
At the moment she was only browsing, having already selected the necessary clothes and outfits for the next year, little was set to change from last year but she was happy to see the belts were staying in fashion. She'd even seen a few more people walking around Beacon with beret's. She always did love setting trends.
Amber had rushed off to some weapons shop, Ruby going with her. Yang had stuck with her and Velvet, not being as enthusiastic about the idea of looking at weapons as her sister was. Fox and Yatsuhashi had gone off to get something to eat and do some browsing of their own, mostly gathering supplies for the next movie night. It was going to be the last one before Yatsuhashi went back to Mistral. Velvet had tried to run off with them, but been unable to escape.
They had gone into a few stores but hadn't bought anything. Most of the time Coco had spent grilling Yang for information. She hadn't set on any specific topic, but she was curious to find out why Amber had seemed so anxious and oddly determined to make sure things went well. She had even considered that Amber wanted to make a good impression on Qrow, maybe wanting a bit more than a standard partnership, but that wasn't the impression that she got.
It felt like Amber wanted to be their friend, but Amber being Amber she had no idea how to go about it. It had already been a pain to get the girl to sit still long enough to have a regular friendly chat with, let alone have her actually bond with anyone. Coco doubted it was intentional, she was just hyper focused on training for reasons none of them had managed to figure out. There were hints, clues that pointed to something troubling, but until Amber said something to confirm it, Coco wasn't going to act on any of it. She enjoyed the Beacon rumor mill most days, but when it came to Amber, she found herself hating it.
The majority of Beacon gave her a wide berth, not wanting to associate with the woman who fought terrorists for fun and had a face scared like she had been attacked by someone wielding acid. The current standing rumours were that her team had died in some kind of tragic accident, but Coco doubted it. Amber was a first year student like them, a second year student now she supposed, but she knew for a fact that Amber hadn't been present for initiation.
That raised a couple questions, but Coco had managed to get a general impression of what was going on. From what she could tell, Amber, and Qrow for that matter, worked for the Headmaster directly. To what extent she wasn't sure but she was clearly trusted enough to go on missions… at least, some times. The incident of her near expulsion aside, the Headmaster had taken a clear bit of interest in Amber that surpassed even her own curiosity.
"Uh… Coco?" Velvet asked, confused as to why her friend hadn't responded yet.
"Sorry, I was thinking about something." Coco let go of the blouse she had been pretending to look at and turned back to her two fellow shoppers. "What's up?"
"Mind if I ask you a question?" Yang was a few racks down, holding some truly ugly trousers with a clear look of disdain.
"Sure." Coco stepped down the aisle a bit, flipping through some of the shirts on display.
"I'm not trying to be nosey but, aren't teams usually four people?"
Coco looked to Velvet, or tried to anyway, only to notice that her friend had disappeared to another aisle as soon as the question had been asked. Coco rolled her eyes but smiled. Velvet had already done better than she expected by talking with Ruby the whole time that they had been out, so she wouldn't hold it against her for dodging this question.
"Usually, yeah." Coco moved a little closer towards Yang.
"Then why are there five of you?"
"There aren't." Coco answered the question honestly. "Amber isn't on our team."
"Then where's her own team?" She clearly shared the same curiosity that team CFVY had, albeit without any of the restraint. Coco made a note to watch out for her next year when the rumour mill finally realized that she existed, she could already tell Yang would likely fan the flames if only for the drama.
"She doesn't have one." Coco said.
Yang was silent for a moment before curiosity once again got the better of her. "What happened?"
"No one knows." Coco sighed. "Amber isn't the most forthcoming of people. She's got a lot of secrets, some she hides better than others. You'll have to ask her about the details."
"Should I be worried she ran off with my sister?" Yang chuckled quietly but the sound was clearly strained, that overprotective sister attitude Amber had warned them about showing through.
"You could trust Amber with anything." Coco reassured the younger girl.
Yang hummed, turning her attention back to some of the clothes on the rack.
Coco pulled something out. "Velvet, come here! I found something I want you to try on."
Velvet groaned but did as she said. She already knew that when fashion was to be concerned, it would only be futile to resist.
Pyrrha read the label on the back of the box again, trying to decide which one was the better option. She had designed Allos to be chambered in a larger caliber as a way to improve her firepower, and while the idea had looked just fine on paper, she wasn't experienced with any kind of larger rounds.
As great as Milo had been, it's rifle form had been fairly straight forward. The rounds had been comparatively small so as to enable her to fit more in the magazine at a time without having to reload, and it had usually only been meant to afford her the time to close into melee range.
While Allos wouldn't be able to hold as many rounds, they would be more useful to her against Cinder, but she would need to select the right ammo. Milo had been designed to use only one type of bullet, being delicate to blowback from anything too potent had resulted in it being restricted to only the most basic of dust rounds. The Weaponsmith had out done himself when making Allos and managed to design it in a way that it could use a wider range of ammo. It still had to be in the same caliber of course, but now she could fire a wide array of more niche ammunition types, such as rounds with a more powerful powder load and specially-shaped bullets.
The issue came in when she had to decide which specific rounds to use. She had allowed herself to grow complacent with Milo and hadn't learned about the other types of ammo because they weren't an option to her… and now she had no idea what type of dust was superior to the others in a fight against someone with Aura. The boxes didn't exactly tell you what type of ammo would be best to kill which target.
Pyrrha signed, setting the boxes back on the shelf and resigning herself to the fact that she would have to do more research on the topic.
"What's wrong?" Ruby looked away from the glass counter she had been looking into, a display case showing off a few simple handguns that you were more likely to see a civilian carry than a Huntsman.
"I…" Pyrrha bit her lip, uncomfortable with the idea of admitting her own ignorance. In the end however, this was Ruby and she knew she could trust the younger girl. "I don't really know the difference between them." She gestured to the wall covered in boxes filled with examples of dust ammo.
"Oooh! I can help!" Ruby beamed up at her. "What are you looking for?"
Pyrrha withdrew Allos from her sheath, switching it to its rifle form before handing it over to Ruby. The younger girl looked like she was about to explode, her smile wide enough that Pyrrha wouldn't have been surprised if she had strained a muscle.
"That's so cool!" Ruby was practically vibrating. "Can it do anything else?"
"I'll show you later." Pyrrha chuckled warmly at her friend's hopeful expression.
"Right, ammo. Ammo first." Ruby examined the weapon in her hand, mumbling softly to herself. "I can totally retrain myself long enough to do that… probably… maybe." Looking up at the wall Ruby pulled a box down and handed it to Pyrrha. "For Grimm you want something that can pierce their bone armour. The best way to do that is with faster and denser bullets, so something like a Fire Dust Full Metal Jacket would be your best bet."
"What about if I was trying to break someone's aura?" Pyrrha asked. Ruby missed the cold tone of her voice, too excited and wrapped up in showing her knowledge to pick up on it.
"Well, then you would want a larger caliber with more power behind it, and your weapon is already chambered for that. So a mixture with a bit of Gravity Dust can give the bullet a lot more force when it hits." Ruby explained. "It won't break through armor like the other bullets, but against something without armor like somebody's Aura, that doesn't really matter."
"You know a lot about this kind of stuff Ruby." Pyrrha smiled.
"I've wanted to be a Huntress since I was a little girl." Pyrrha knew that already of course, the two having talked about the topic before.
"You want to be a hero?" Pyrrha asked, already knowing the response from her friend.
"I want to help people." Ruby smiled brightly as she handed Allos back to Pyrrha.
"You're going to love Beacon, Ruby." Pyrrha smiled, taking a few more boxes of the Gravity Dust ammo and stepping over to the counter.
"Heh, thankfully I have a few years yet." Ruby twitter her fingers together, whispering softly. "Maybe then I'll be able to make some friends."
"You'll make plenty of friends Ruby." Pyrrha responded to the hushed words that she hadn't been meant to hear, causing the younger girl to jump slightly and blush. "Beacon has a way of building friendships with people you never thought you'd meet."
"I've still got a couple years before I find out." Ruby rubbed the back of her neck. "You'll almost be leaving by then."
Pyrrha just smiled knowingly, wishing she could tell Ruby the truth but knowing that even if she did, there was no reason for her to believe the woman she just met. "It'll be here sooner than you think. Now come on, if we hurry back we might be able to go back to Beacon for a tour. I could take you to the sparring rings and show you what Allos can really do."
Ruby looked like she was about to pass out, the next moment she was gone. Replaced by a trail of rose petals that lead out of the store. Pyrrha looked up to see her standing by the exit to the store.
"Come on, we need to hurry before Yang says it's time to eat!"
Pyrrha could only smile.
Author's Note: Chapter is done… yay! This is the first time I've written any of the main four in this story and it wasn't actually some trippy dream version of them. So hopefully that lands well.
Now… what was I going to say? I had some kind of announcement to mak- oh yeah I got fanart of Allos commissioned!
Over on DeviantArt, under the same username as here, you'll find all the art I've commissioned for all my stories. Cover Art, concept art, everything, eventually to include a few original project things I've worked on throughout the years. I can't post a link because this site doesn't like them, but it shouldn't be hard to find. I have a pretty unique username after all.
I hope you enjoyed it and as always let me know what you think. I love to read reviews, even if I haven't been the best at responding to them lately, but I promise you I am reading them. They make my day. Even if it's a simple "hey this sucks".
Sincerely, SE