Disclaimer: See first chapter.

CRDN

Ruby very carefully tweaked the last screw into place, letting the magnets take the rest of it out of her control. Why they wanted a magnetic scabbard sword combo, Ruby didn't know, but they wanted it and refused every ounce of sense that Ruby had tried to talk into them. It was another custom, but not mechashift, thankfully. If she had tried to do magnetic weaponry while mixed with mechashift, she was probably going to tear her hair out.

"And...done!" she announced, giving the piece an eye. It wasn't up to her to name it, but she felt she should. The owner, a young man who was going to Beacon next year, seemed like a bit of a flake. It was a scabbard, yes, but with a simple button, the magnets locked in, and the sword shot out fast enough for her to catch it and swing in the same motion. They were linked by the magnets too, allowing both sides to be used, even if it didn't make sense.

She carefully re-sheathed the sword, making sure that it had the inherent metal scraping sound that the boy had wanted. It wasn't actually scraping against anything, it was just a sound clip she'd loaded into a small device in the corner of the scabbard. Made things a lot easier when she didn't try to make the sound. She looked over to the other man in the shop, carefully waiting in the back for her to be done. He was cloaked and hooded, and Ruby thought she could see a vague outline of an eye patch on one eye. "Okay, I'm sorry for making you wait-" she started.

The man looked over to the door, and promptly took a step back as the bell over her door rung, and she hurriedly placed the piece away. "Welcome to Summer's Weapon Shop!" she announced, staring at the four that had come in. One of them seemed oddly familiar, but she wasn't quite sure where to place him. They were all male, the obvious leader having short brown hair with a large mace on his back in near full body armor. Another two also had armor, but their weapons were nowhere in sight. The last man was slightly shorter with a green mohawk, two daggers at his waist.

"Oh, so this is where that freak goes to," the one with green hair said. "I've been wondering what kind of shop would cater to her kind." Ruby narrowed her eyes.

"My brother told me about this place," the leader said as he grabbed one of the pistol daggers on display. "Said it was run by a girl, and they didn't know who he was at all," he said, staring and meeting Ruby's eyes. "Wait, Russ, isn't that the girl that was in Port's class last week?" he asked. "The one with the experimental weapon that just blew an ursa's head straight off?"

One of the other armored ones looked at Ruby with a discerning eye, and Ruby grabbed onto Crescent Rose at her back. Older students, so probably Beacon, but obviously not of the kind she'd prefer. Anyone that called anyone 'freaks' was not on her good list. "You know, I think you're right Cardin. That is her! She's working here of all places?" he said, stepping back.

The leader, Cardin, walked forward. "Hey, I bet I can handle that experimental weapon of yours. Imagine all that a real huntsman can do with it, instead of just...what, a shopkeeper?" he asked, flexing his arm muscles in front of her face.

"It's not for sale," Ruby answered quietly. "I suggest you leave."

"Ha, she 'suggests' we leave!" Cardin laughed to the other three, prompting them to start laughing as well. "Sorry 'ma'am', but we aren't going to be leaving anytime soon. Not unless we want to. This is a weapons shop right? So how come you got things that aren't for sale?" he asked, leaning down on the glass.

"Cardin, look at this! It's a vintage Brass version three!" one of the other armored men said, holding up one of the swords. Ruby had never liked the piece, as it was far too heavy to be an actual sword, and the pieces sticking out from it just made it look more dangerous for the user.

"You have Brass weaponry here? What happened to Vale superiority?" Cardin asked, glancing down at the dust in the glass container. "He's, what, Vacuan? What do they got that Vale doesn't?"

"Brass is Mistralian," the same one said. He put the sword back down reverently. "Sides, don't you use a Mistralian weapon?" he asked.

"The Executioner isn't Mistralian! It's obviously from Vale. The designs were made in Vale, and I forged the thing myself. Don't you think so, too, miss shopkeep?" Cardin asked, planting his mace on the glass. Ruby was glad that the glass didn't start to crack, if only because it looked really, really bad.

She was almost disgusted by the look of the thing. It had a fire crystal clumsily pushed into the center of the thing, able to be easily seen for quick changing out. But in doing so, it was also visible, and Ruby knew that she'd aim for the thing just out of habit. The edges were blunted, and the spikes that came out were almost bent at certain angles. If that was intentional, it was deserving of the name 'The Executioner', as most people wouldn't block from the angles the mace could hit.

But if it wasn't, then it just proved this Cardin was an absolute failure at weapon maintenance. "I'd give it a C," Ruby answered truthfully. "Now get out."

"A C!?" Cardin said, pulling the mace off the counter. "I'll show you a C! Come on, this lousy shop has one of those hard light arenas, right!? Come on, I'll show you!" he snarled, his lips being pulled back.

Ruby had a habit of not actually fighting potential customers, even if they asked for a spar. But for these four, and the man in the corner, she had no problem with it. She wanted them out. She made sure Crescent Rose was right where it should be on her back, before she nodded. "Fine, but if I win you leave," she said, her eyes narrowing. She was getting more than bad vibes from these four. Well, three of them. One didn't seem too bad, yet. Still not someone she'd want in her shop, but she'd take his money, at least.

"Ha! I can take that bet against a girl like you! Fine, and if I win you have to give me that experimental weapon of yours for free! And throw in a full ten thousand lien. Surely you have to have that much around?" he asked, sneering as he walked down into the inset arena.

Ruby turned to the cloaked man in the corner. She mouthed a quick 'I'm sorry!' to him as she walked by, hoping that neither of the three others noticed him. He was good at remaining undetected, it seemed. He said nothing to her, and Ruby stepped down into the arena.

She took her scroll out of her pocket, putting it on the small podium. Cardin's eyebrows raised. "Put your scroll on podium. First to red aura loses," Ruby announced.

Cardin shrugged. "Your waste, I guess. Thinking you have more aura than me. That's funny. Skye, don't you think that's funny?" he asked, putting his scroll onto the other side. Ruby noticed that it was one of the newer models, but that it still had scratches on it. This man...no, boy...didn't take good care of his equipment.

"Yeah that's funny," Skye said, the one that had mentioned the Brass. "She's got a selection. You got ammo here too? And what's your dust look like?" he asked, surprisingly interested in actually buying stuff.

"Yes, dust is in the front. Ammunition is on the left side. Prices as marked," Ruby answered, her eyes not leaving Cardin. She unfurled Crescent Rose, letting the system detect that a spar was starting, as it would only do when two scrolls were on the podiums. There was a way to activate the training mode with only one scroll, but she hadn't really had too much time to fiddle around with it.

"You're not gonna watch Skye? Some friend you are," Cardin murmured as he pulled his mace, and Ruby saw him activate the fire dust inside. He was going to use fire dust in this? That was...not against the rules, but definitely not sportsmanlike. Now she wished that her dad was here to at least watch over the fight. Ruby mentally counted down, waiting for the boy to start. Her countdown wasn't wrong.

Cardin rushed forward, swinging The Executioner recklessly down towards her. In an instant Ruby was behind him, tripping him using the shaft of Crescent Rose, aiming for a swift aura knockout by swinging the blade part down where his chest would have been. He pulled up the mace, letting it block most of the blow before he rolled away, swinging it recklessly towards her own legs. She jumped up over the chain, swiftly changing Crescent Rose to gun formation and letting a glancing blow fly off his shoulder armor. He let out a snarl again, rushing forward and trying the same thing.

She used her Semblance to go behind him, smacking him back down into the floor before he could get another swing in. She glanced at the aura meters. Hers was at a steady ninety eight percent, the only damage from using her Semblance. Cardin though was at nearly seventy.

He growled, forcing himself up. "I don't know who you think you are," he said, his voice low. He grabbed the chain of his mace in one hand, creating makeshift nunchucks with the handle and flail.

Cardin rushed her again, this time making sure to time his steps that she couldn't dodge easily. He swung not recklessly, but instead with practiced acts and carefully measured attacks. Ruby felt herself take a few steps back as Crescent Rose swung around and around deflecting the heavy part of the mace. The handle parts would still hit her, and she felt her aura slowly drain away with each successive hit. The worst part was that if he had done this from the start he probably would win handily. He was actually surprisingly good. Just...not nearly good enough.

She lashed out with her leg, getting him right on the shin just as he swung the heavy part at her. Ruby rushed to the part where he couldn't hit her, and she was on the offensive now. Spin after spin, she felt herself slowly start to go faster and faster.

Cardin was trying to keep up, his mace and chain moving every which way as fast as he could see, but she knew she was still connecting with at least some of her attacks. "Fine!" he yelled as she knocked back another half step, and he swung the mace down onto the floor.

It exploded.

Ruby knelt down to try to avoid as much of the explosion as she could, but the mace went up a moment later to smack her head. She went flying into the hard light walls, and she felt her aura take a large dive. He hadn't self destructed the weapon, he'd self destructed the fire dust in the middle. Not too bad, but he could probably only do that once.

She was down to fifty percent aura. Cardin? Down to thirty. He seemed to realize that he was on his last legs aura wise. "Come on, you think you can do ten percent more? I bet you can't!" he taunted, swinging his mace around, ignoring the hole in the floor he'd created.

Ruby gave a sigh before she used her Semblance to go between his legs. He jumped up in shock, trying to turn around to block the inevitable strike from behind. But Ruby hadn't turned back to strike, but to flip Crescent Rose into the ground, giving a shot into the floor to give her upward momentum, flipping over him as he tried to turn around.

He was smashed into the hard light walls a moment later as Ruby landed in the same direction she'd come from. The aura reader gave a small beep, showing that the spar had ended by official rules. Ruby had won, with nearly forty percent aura remaining. Cardin was only at fifteen.

She'd done nearly fifteen percent of his aura with one strike.

"Alright, now I win. Get out," Ruby said sternly. Cardin sneered at her, holstering his mace as he stomped off.

"Come on guys. I didn't want to be here anyways," he said, staring at Ruby with unrivaled hatred. The other three made their excuses and ran off, although Skye came back a moment later and mouthed 'sorry!' as he did so, joining them a second afterwards.

Ruby took a few deep breaths, gathering her scroll and putting it back into her pocket. She turned back to the cloaked man. "Sorry about...that...?" she asked aloud, realizing that somewhere during the fight he had left, leaving her alone in the store except for Zwei. "When did he leave...?" she asked. The dog gave a quiet whine and tilted his head.

E.C. Maintenance

Ruby glanced down at the blueprints for Ember Celica again. She had all the measurements right, and it should have been coming together perfectly in time for Yang to come by later today to pick it up. Yet...the parts weren't fitting together the way they should have been.

They were still relatively in tact, after she replaced most of the inner workings for the mechashift. The plates on the outside got hammered back into shape, or she reforged the plates that couldn't be simply hammered out. She gave a low growl as she took a few of the plates off, looking at all the inner workings.

Ember Celica was, in Ruby's mind, an extraordinary creation of someone who didn't know that something couldn't be done, and then went and did it anyways. The transforming parts weren't the hard part, the hard part was making the plates be able to fold and become essentially bracelets before folding out and becoming gauntlets.

The shotgun parts had to be able to cleaned, too, so it actually needed a full three transformations. Ruby blinked as she slammed her head onto the desk. "I'm an idiot," she said. She had completely forgot about the maintenance mode. That was their actual default formation, Yang just wore them as bracelets as the default.

"I don't think you are. Otherwise Yang wouldn't have let you work on those," Blake's voice called out from the center. Ruby looked up, the cat faunus right in the middle of the room holding a few boxes of ammunition. "You are open, right?" she asked, her eyes tilting up.

"I'm always open for you or Yang," Ruby responded instantly. "Or even Pyrrha and Jaune for that matter," she finished. "No, I just remembered there's a third mode to Ember Celica, and it's the actual default that everything folds into and out of."

"The maintenance mode that Yang keeps talking about?" Blake asked. Her eyes glazed over the inner workings of the shotgun gauntlets, showing visible surprise at just how complex they actually were, with hundreds of small moving parts and barely a tenth of an inch of any amount of room. "How can those things even fire?" she asked. "The air has to go somewhere!"

"It does. Right back into Yang. See, the truth is that if anyone else were to use these, they'd hurt themselves. Probably badly," Ruby admitted. "The recoil doesn't go back into the gauntlets, they go back into the hands. For anyone else, this would be a major problem. But not for Yang."

"Her Semblance. She's using her Semblance every time she fires," Blake said breathlessly. "That's ingenious. Every strike powers her up!"

"Not exactly. She has a time limit on how long the power up lasts. It's a weird Semblance. Dad always thought it was based off of his," Ruby said. She pressed a button, and the shotgun gauntlets transformed with a keening wail to their default mode, half gauntlets with the fingers showing. She flipped them over, suddenly reveling in the amount of room that she had to work with, and the fact the plates were all in the proper place.

Just not proper alignment.

Blake uncovered her hands from her ears, both sets Ruby noticed, before she stood up straight. "Warn me before you do that next time?" she asked.

"Sorry. I wanted to make sure it'd work. I didn't know it was going to do that," Ruby answered. She pried off one of the more troublesome plates, not surprised when it collapsed the instant most of the pressure was off. "Good thing I made extras," she said, fitting another into place.

"How many parts does it have? It doesn't seem like it should have a lot," Blake asked. Ruby thought about it for a moment. Crescent Rose had nearly eighty two moving parts, and Ember Celica was about half as complex as the scythe.

"Somewhere around forty five? That's just everything that moves. Overall I think it's something two ninety," Ruby said. "It's complicated. And...finally," she said, pushing another button. Blake covered her ears again, but there was no klaxon or wail. Instead the weapons slowly turned back into bracelets. Ruby nodded, putting them on her hands and hitting the activation button. Instantly they covered her hands exactly as they were supposed to. "Finally..."

"I'll tell Yang she can come by to pick them up. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to do it in time. Goodwitch would have been angry with us if she wasn't," Blake said. "And we can't really afford to get on Goodwitch's bad side right now."

"Why? You've only had detention five times this month alone right?" Ruby asked sarcastically as she moved to the arena in the center. She'd gotten it fixed after her match with Cardin, not that it was particularly hard or time-consuming to do. Despite the dust explosion, she'd done more damage to the floor than he had.

"Six. We had another one when Ren and Nora, two other first years decided to try and recruit everyone for an on-campus party. I say Ren and Nora, but it was mostly Nora."

"A party doesn't sound too bad."

"It is when it's one of Nora's. Also we had to cut combat class for it."

"Sounds like you knew what would go wrong then," Ruby chastised as she turned on the hard light dummy. She hit the buttons for Ember Celica to come out in gauntlet form again, and did a few test shots. The recoil bit into her aura like she knew it would, and the punches were suitably augmented. "Alright, that should be good to go. I'll have Yang test it when she gets here."

"That...might be a bit difficult," Blake answered as she looked at her scroll. "Apparently Port wants an essay for tomorrow's class. And Yang didn't even start it until ten minutes ago. She's asking to look at mine."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Of course she forgot it. If it wasn't explosions it probably didn't have her attention. You should edit yours with obvious fake references and send it to her, see how long it takes for her to realize it's fake," Ruby said.

"That's mean."

"We're sisters, we're allowed to be mean," Ruby said instantly. "Besides, she's sending her teammate to pick up her weapons for her. That alone says she needs to rethink a few things."

"Why?"

"Because it's weird, that's why. And it's forcing you to pay for her."

"You're still charging her, even though you're sisters?"

"If I felt I could get away with it, I'd charge her more," Ruby admitted shamelessly. "What is it called, the family discount of negative ten percent?" she smiled maliciously. "But I can't overcharge her teammate. That just isn't right," Ruby finished.

"You know, she'll probably send me more often then."

"Eh, you're welcome over anytime. Besides, this way we can talk both shop and books. Have you finished the third one yet?" Ruby asked suddenly. She hoped that Blake would know exactly which series she was talking about.

Blake blushed a bit. Yep. Blake knew exactly which series she was talking about. "Yang and Jaune keep asking me what the books are about. Haven't finished the fourth chapter yet."

"Chapter five's the good scene."

"I didn't want to know that! No spoilers Ruby!" Blake laughed, acting all offended. Ruby grinned, rolling her eyes as she walked back to the behind of the counter. "Where's the dog?" she asked after a moment, her bow moving subtly.

"Oh, Zwei's upstairs. He found another dog on our walk this morning and that got him all tired out," Ruby answered. She turned to the point of sale system, entering in a few things. "You said you need ammunition right? .38?"

"Yes, both Jaune and I use .38, so we're going through it quick."

"How is Jaune getting along? I haven't seen Mors back here for maintenance yet, and to be honest I was expecting it."

"Oh, he mostly already knew how to maintain the sword portion, and I've been teaching him how to handle the gun portion. Yang's been teaching the mechashift."

"That's good. Wouldn't want anything I forge to be ill-maintained. Bad for business!" Ruby grinned. "Yang knows how to handle mechashift," she said, before looking down at the rebuilt Ember Celica. "Mostly. Mostly."

"Mostly. How much?"

"Eh, same as I quoted Yang. How many boxes?"

Blake blinked, before she remembered the ammunition part. "Um, hmm...Jaune doesn't use much, and I don't either, so maybe like five boxes? That should be enough to get us through the rest of the semester."

"How does Beacon handle money? None of you have jobs and none of the first years can take jobs for money," Ruby asked. "I shouldn't really be asking but at this point I feel I should..."

"There's a small stipend for shopping purposes. Most people just ask their parents, but even for those that don't want to, there are ways to get money," Blake answered.

"Right. Good to know I'm not overcharging. Now if it was Yang, I would," Ruby said. "Alright, rebuilt Ember Celica, that's nearly six thousand, plus five boxes at fifteen hundred each that's...an ouch total," Ruby said, flipping the screen.

Blake winced. "Six thousand for Ember Celica?"

"You saw how small those parts were. You think those were easy to make?" Ruby answered. "Something like Ember Celica is extremely specialized. No other weaponsmith I know would be able to do it."

"Do you even know any other's?"

"No, but that's not the point."

"Ruby!"

Ruby kept smiling at her, before Blake eventually broke down, getting a few lien cards out. Rebuilding Ember Celica had been expensive, and took a lot out of her time. She actually still had a few orders left that hadn't been done because she'd been focusing on the gauntlet shotguns.

Blake grabbed her boxes of ammunition, putting them into a small bag at her waist before grabbing the mechashift gauntlets. "Thanks Ruby. I'm sure that Yang would have wanted to be here."

"Oh please, she'd be haggling me down on account of being my sister," Ruby shrugged. "Part of the reason I'd overcharge her."

"How much is your margin?"

"On things like that? Honestly...not even two hundred lien," Ruby admitted. "She is my sister, after all," she said.

Blake blinked, probably not realizing just how low that actually was. Ruby had done the math, most of her margins were in the two to three hundred lien range. Yang's actual margins for Ember Celica? Somewhere in the negatives.

Yang was her sister, after all.

"Thanks, Ruby," Blake said as she gave a small wave, heading out of the shop.

"Be sure to read chapter five!" Ruby shouted as she heard the bell ring. "Heh, that never gets old. Okay Zwei, you can come on out now," she said, turning to the bathroom.

The door opened slowly, the corgi's head peeking out. "She's gone. Don't know why she's scared of you, you're just so floofy and adorable," Ruby said, picking up the dog gently, staring into his eyes. He gave a soft woof before licking her nose.

"Oh Zwei, no, that's disgusting!" Ruby said, putting him down on the glass counter before having to go and wash off her face. She took a deep breath of air as she came back out, her face now clean. She was getting the hang of this shopkeeping thing.

Chapter 10. Which puts Weaponsmith at reaching the 40k word mark. I've been getting some reviews that say I've been doing a bit too much bumblebee, which I can understand, so I've tried to tone that down a bit. Reading future chapters though and it makes me think I swung much more towards Ladybug (also not intended) so I'll try to tone those down too! I ain't a romance writer. I'll leave that to those that can actually write that stuff.

For anyone who's wondering where exactly is Weiss in all this, Weiss is still here. However, she doesn't have much reason to come down to Vale, or to a weapon shop of all things. As for who her teammates are...well...that's a surprise. Updating a day early as I won't be able to tomorrow.

Until Next Time!