Guys in car 1: 6. Weapons: shitty. Disposition: scared (for good reason). Affiliation: incapacitated Fourths.

Rubys: 0. Allies: 5 (2 realistically). Weapons: Yang's bare hands, Blake's weird hand-sickle things, Oobleck's stupid bat-thermos, Ruby's disc, and Weiss' sword. Disposition: Grim and dutiful (Yang), indifferent (Blake), distracted (Dr. Oobleck), protective (Weiss), and blinking in and out of reality from the pain and lack of blood (Ruby). Affiliation: Beacon Hunters' Academy.

Yang didn't kill them. She definitely could (the girl Ruby was leaning on was proof enough) but she stayed mostly with Tai, not Raven, so she was more sensitive to the lives of this racist gaggle. Even Blake, who'd apparently sustained their own Fourth abuses, sufficed to knock them out.

Merciful or not, Yang and Blake went through Fourths like they were getting paid per punch. It was extremely interesting to watch— not to say they necessarily did better than herself and Weiss, but while Ruby and her nemesis literally tore through Fourths to push engine-wise, Yang and Blake had to weave their way forwards, dancing around incapacitated Fourths with grace and care. It was like a dance, kinda, but with a lot more punching, kicking, and yelling. She felt kinda useless, but it was nice being able to (lean on Weiss) take a break.

It gave Ruby time to think about her date. She definitely wouldn't take Weiss to the place she worked. That'd be tantamount to torture and might even get her pulled into a shift she doesn't wanna be in. Maybe…

She spent a lot of money on Pyrrha, and she really didn't want to sell sketchy handloads again. Yang could probably lend her some money… no, wait, that'd be fucked up. Yang had been living alone (mostly, sometimes with uncle Qrow) in Tai's house since he died— apparently she was near-rich from the inheritance he'd left— and Ruby didn't want to steal dead-dad-money to date someone Yang probably didn't approve of. Crap, she didn't have enough blood to think about this.

"Hey… Weiss?"

"Florabel."

God. Every time. "Flo-oor—"

Weiss caressed her fucking cheek, siphoning the fucking tic away, for some unfuckinggodly reason, because apparently now she was a fucking seductress or some fucking bullshit. Good fucking god. Ruby should've punched her for that bullshit, but it took everything to keep her stupid fucking idiot knees from buckling stupidly under her own dumbass self. Fuck.

"I, uh… I dunno if I can even buy you a drink." Ruby felt her face go aflame as she admitted that, so she looked away to hide her embarrassment. "I-I spent a lot of money on… uh… other stuff…"

Weiss hummed. "That's fine. I shall pay."

Ruby frantically shook her head, stuttering, "N-no! No, you don't have to! I just mean we can do something free like go for a walk or—"

Weiss nodded as if her partgirlnemefriennersis were doling out sage advice. "That sounds good once we are done at the cafe— walking off the caffeine and calories. 'Twould be quite pleasant."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa shetalkedsofuckingstupidbutgoditwassofuckingendearingRubycouldnotgetenoughofitFUCKshewasgoingtoTHROTTLEthisBITCHtoDEATHinaROMANTICway. "Y-you don't have to… to pay. I— I mean, it's just—" she laughed nervously. Stupidly. "It's j-just me, haha, I— I'm sure you worked your gay little job for, like… other stuff… ahaha."

She tried to hard to not sound stricken, like Weiss had shoved another sword right through the center of her chest, like she was about to have a case of the vapors, like the blood rushing to her face was literally all she had left so she was gonna pass out, but she failed spectacularly on every single front. "Mmm, no," Weiss rebutted easily, not even taking her eyes off the spectacular combat in front of them. Oh man, she had such a dainty chin. "I did start working specifically for your birthday present."

"Y-you… not even for your own stuff?"

Weiss shrugged. "That's been a benefit, but I've made do with mine own means so far. No, the job was for thy pants. All else is a bonus."

Ruby frowned really hard— that was the only thing she could rationally do with her face after that. "Weiss, you… were you trying to hook up with me before prom?"

"Not…" Weiss hummed, her head tilting around thoughtfully. "No. I was just trying to pull thee from the First's ill intentions, though… now that I think of it, I did that mostly to be acknowledged by thee again, so… hm. Mayhaps. Partially. Without conscious thought."

"Subconsciously?"

"Aye. Subconsciously." Yang and Blake shouted, opening the next car. Weiss tugged Ruby along, her voice taking a slightly nervous tone as she mumbled through the side of her mouth: "Come, Ruby, try not to look so lovestruck in front of the others."

Ruby spluttered (stupidly, like the stupid dumb bird-brained idiot she was). "I— I am not!"

Her outburst made the others look with concern. Ruby froze. Weiss, thankfully, did not, and continued carrying Ruby forward without nearly revealing the whole game. "We are coming, do not put us in such a rush. Bird-bint here did break her foot."

"You—" Ruby punched her, which hurt Ruby way more than it hurt Weiss. "Ow, shit! God!"

The others looked at each other before doing a simultaneous 'I don't know what the fuck is wrong with them and I don't have time to bother trying to unravel it' shrug, then proceeding into the next car. Ruby hobbled along behind them, one feathered arm stretched over Weiss' shoulders. She was so short.

Weiss looked at the arm over her shoulders. "Dear god, Ruby, your feathers."

Ruby reeled so hard she nearly fell back off of Weiss' shoulders. That concern, god, she sounded like mum scolding her for being un-preened. "W-what about them?"

"They're awful!" Weiss whined. Almost as a backdrop, Yang spectacularly threw a guy into three other guys. Weiss didn't even spare a glance towards the action, instead staring with furrowed, pensive brows at Ruby's left forearm. "Look at them! They're everywhere! They look like they're about to fall out!"

Weiss slowly raised a hand towards the feathers. Ruby watched with wide, desperate eyes, silently screaming, 'pleasepreenmepleasepreenmepleasepreenmepleasepreenme' before deflating when Weiss realized herself and pulled away. Ruby coughed. "Uh-ha, ha, well yeah, I was under a train just a sec ago." She gave her arms a little shake, which achieved nothing for the (pun intended) bird's nest that her feathers had become. "They, uh… don't really just, like… get fixed. Preening is a, uh… it's… like…"

'Extremely intimate'; 'reserved for family, the closest of friends, and romantic partners'; 'going to feel so good when your dainty little fingers sift between my—'

"It's a whole thing," Ruby managed to finish, her guts and chest feeling like a knot of mental dissonance, emotional confusion, and physical pain. "Takes a while. And I can't really do it right myself."

Weiss hummed. A Fourth stumbled off Yang's punch, whirling and staggering towards them. Out of respect for Yang and Blake (or the fact that she was also not as bloodthirsty as her nemesis), Weiss smacked him in the head with the flat of her sword, knocking him fully unconscious. She and Ruby stepped over the body, the latter nearly kicking it before she remembered her kicking foot was shattered. "Do you…" Weiss visibly considered her question. Yang punched two guys with one swing. Blake's chained sickles tripped a guy onto his back, and they launched themself over him into an amazing drop-kick that left another guy gasping on the floor. Weiss continued, "What's the word… do you… get new feathers?"

"Molt?"

Weiss nodded. "Aye. Molt."

The warmth between Ruby's lungs was definitely from the stab wound. Not being asked real questions from Weiss. It was the stab wound. "Uh, yeah," she answered. "One in the summer and one in the winter."

"Second-to-last!" Yang shouted, standing before the next door with Blake stacked up on its side. "Ready?"

Blake tapped their sickles together. "Ready."

Oobleck, as if for good luck, lifted his hat to pet Zwei before covering him again. "Ready."

Weiss nodded. "Aye, ready."

Ruby jolted, lost in staring at Weiss' scar. "Y-yes! Ready!"

Yang stomped the door off its hinges, sprinting in with flaming fists and Blake close behind.

Blake suddenly reappeared from nothing, right in front of Ruby and Weiss, nearly making them trip. A second later, Yang flew out from the newly-opened boxcar and landed in the arms of Blake— one of the clones her Semblance could produce (that or it was really her and she'd swapped places with a clone)— before throwing herself out of the Blake's grasp and stomping right back in. Heat climbed out of the door she'd just flown through. The Blake in front of them disappeared.

Weiss looked at her nemesis. Ruby looked at her nemesis. Oobleck said something, then followed in.

"I can fight," Ruby claimed. "I'm not tanking anything, but my Aura's almost fully back. I can teleport around at least once, do a lot in one go."

Weiss scowled. She looked like she wanted to oppose that, but she didn't. "We will go in. If it is simply an overabundance of heretics, we shall give them space to work. If it is the girl, we shall give them space to work. If it is the girl and an overabundance of heretics, thou may use thy Semblance. Once. If it is the girl, an overabundance of heretics, and their little leader, and Torchwick…" Weiss side-eyed her partner. "Then you had best make thy peace with the Second. I've heard he is remarkably forgiving." Under an ensuing sigh, she added, "Even to heasts."

Ruby's frown nearly pulled itself off her face. "Shut up."

Weiss smiled her stupid gay smile at her. Ruby looked away and tried to think about throttling her to death. Of course, she only succeeded in mentally throttling Weiss to a much smaller sort of death, the image of which made Ruby's face considerably hotter. The unbearable bitch she was, Weiss picked that moment to start shuffling into the next car.

Overabundance of heretics? Check.

The girl? Check. Her throat was actively spewing something like black oil or dark, synthetic blood, but she didn't seem hampered at all.

And Roman was there.

Why did she ever quit Archivism?

'Hey, Rubes?'

'Huh?'

'You ever, um… wonder if…'

'What? Wonder if what?'

'N-no, it's… nevermind.'

'What!'

'No, I can't ask you this kind of thing! It'll…'

'Stop mumbling?'

'I don't wanna get in trouble with your mom!'

'My mom?'

'Your mom. Summer.'

'Why would you get in trouble? Mum is always super nice.'

'Because! Because… crap. Just forget it! Forget I said anything. Seriously.'

'Yaaa-aaaaaaaaang, teeeeeeell meeeeee!'

'No way!'

'I'll tell Tai about that time you choked me out!'

'That— that was— you agreed to that! So did mom! It was training!'

'But you didn't tell your dad because you knew he'd be mad!'

'I! I… fine! Whatever. Friggin tattle.'

'Come on!'

'I just… I… look, don't think about this too seriously, alright? I— I don't even really know, but, um…'

'Yeaaaaah?'

'Is god even, like, real?'

'Of course—'

'N-no! Wait! Hear me out!'

'Okay…'

'I just mean… um… I mean… all this, um… bad… stuff… why is it even here? If bad stuff happened and you could stop it, wouldn't you?'

'I… I would. I guess. Not to Derron because he's a bully but yeah.'

'So why doesn't god? I mean, the whole Archivist thing— it's just, like… it's just guys, right? Just… special guys. I'm a special guy. You're a special guy. Are they really different from us?'

'Obviously they are, or else they wouldn't be the Archivists.'

'That's not… I… that's not really what I mean, but, um… I… I dunno. I guess it just doesn't super make sense to me. Like 'woah this guy I can't see made me and everyone and also these four special guys but he also made like all the evil ever and you can't actually talk to him and he won't talk to you but you have to worship him and his special guys.' Does that make sense?'

'...'

'Ruby?'

'O-of course it doesn't!'

Of course it did. It just took her a while to realize it, and she realized it even harder than Yang did. Yang actually grew out of her atheist phase. Ruby grew into it.

Yang didn't have the best arguments at the time— Ruby had been too young to argue for or against them— but they were enough to plant a seed. If the Archivists were so special, why did they 'leave'? That just didn't make sense. It made sense if they were real guys in history that just banded together, taught others to believe in some greater power, then died. But, if they were really fragmentary incarnations of the divine, why then would they just disappear? Why leave their work and their world to humans? Why not come during any of the three global conflicts to ensure the world could be guided to peace? Sure, you could say 'people need to learn from their own mistakes' for the first one— maybe even two— but three? That was just negligent.

It was negligent. It was callous. It was disrespectful, and the Second had taught her well of respect. Ruby would live her life as felt true to her, and a respectful god would judge her based on that alone. A disrespectful god would account for her worship first— did this creature revere my greatness enough?— and that rubbed Ruby the wrong way.

Yang was different. Yang was still a Second, even if Ruby knew she kept her worship private. She didn't care. Yang was happy about it and she didn't proselytize to Ruby, so Ruby did the same.

Mum was… less so. She wasn't very happy about it. She was all about the Second-Archivist lifestyle. Mom gave neither shit nor fuck.

Still, Ruby sent an internal plea towards the Second. For Yang's sake. Maybe a little for Weiss'.

"Killer!" Roman Torchwick called over the chaos, affixing Ruby with an unreasonably friendly (bordering on joyful) look the moment she stepped in, somehow catching her eye perfectly between the tightly-packed combat in the boxcar. "Good to see ya again! Have you met my kid?"

With his cane, Roman gestured to the fight occupying most of the boxcar's center: Yang Xiao Long, fists blazing, smoking through her grit teeth, was embattled with a literal child. The kid was probably 13 or 14, wielded a remarkably frilly umbrella, and wore what Ruby could only describe as an androgynously-tailored pink and white dance costume, complete with frilly skirt and shirt vest. She was lethally struck with the idea of Weiss in that outfit, which nearly incapacitated her, but she managed to shake it off and scowl back at Torchwick.

"They seem nice!" Ruby shouted over the crowd fighting Fourths, Yang and Blake, Penny, Oobleck, and (to an ankle-biting extent) Zwei. Roman's neck fell back and he visibly let out a loud sigh of relief, and Ruby was pretty sure she could read his lips saying 'fucking finally,' before the crowd obscured sight of him. Weiss jostled her.

"Art thou in cahoots with the enemy?" Weiss asked, her one good eye sharp in warning.

Ruby lifted one brow. "I wouldn't tell you if I were."

Weiss started to step away. Ruby jerked her back in.

"No, dumbass, I'm not in cahoots with anybody!"

"You're in cahoots with me," Weiss mumbled, dejected.

"Oh my god, shut up and lean me against a fucking wall or something," Ruby grumbled. "I'll pick a good moment to do my thing; get Penny nailed down and I can clear most of this boxcar."

"I'm not nailing—"

"Weiss!" Ruby barked, ignoring how she wanted very much to laugh at the stupid joke Weiss was about to make. "Just go! No time for jokes!"

Weiss, harrumphing, set her nemesis beside the doorframe they'd just come from, leaning her against the shoddy wall and diving into the fight immediately after. It felt so wrong to let her go like that— into the fray, swinging and smacking and punching— without her. Sure, she and Weiss scrapped, but what she did in a crowd was artful. It was grace. It was a dance, spinning and shifting and slashing and striking, and Ruby couldn't stop watching.

She didn't like it.

Weiss was meant to thrash and roll beneath her, squirming, fighting, biting and clawing like she could fix all her problems just by killing Ruby Rose. This was too beautiful. This was a painting that Ruby wanted to claw— to see sweat and strain— but nobody could even touch her. She ducked in and out so perfectly, reaching Penny without any of the undeserving peons laying so much as a finger on her. Penny, still fumbling with Ruby's wires and locked with them tangled up in Blake's sickles, didn't even see her approach.

With each step towards Penny, Ruby saw her nemesis' grace fade. Her stride became a lope. She gripped her sword in reverse and aggressively screwed on a red pommel. Her face was tight, her teeth drawn. Her one eye was wide with violent intent.

It was worse. Ruby hated it more, that face was meant for her, dammit!

Weiss ran Penny through her side, stabbing down, ripping right past her Aura with the burning sword still reversed in her grip. Penny seized. Weiss' shoulder exploded. Then her chest exploded. Then, finally, the left side of her head followed suit.

Blake was painted crimson. They screamed and barfed— simultaneously, somehow— but Yang moved without hesitation, barging through the tightly-packed space like a battering ram to get to Weiss and Blake. Penny spurted black and collapsed onto her face, sword still burning through her side. Weiss collapsed with her, falling wetly to the floor. Ruby plotted towards the shooter.

It was the kid. The shitty kid. Not Roman's kid. The shitty kid that Ruby liked a lot fucking less. Director Something-wood. Morningwood. Ha.

He was at the back, standing tall with his smoking revolver and bandaged face, probably thinking he looked so cool. Roman stood by his side, staring with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, his face taut with worry.

She should've teleported earlier. She shouldn't have been staring at Weiss like a horny teen. She should've been more useful. Now she could only use her Semblance for one thing: teleporting to Ironwood, jamming her knife up under his jaw, and skewering his head like a kebab. She'd watch him drain all over his sermoncloths. She'd laugh at him. She'd parade him around for all the worthless Fourths to see. She'd avenge her nemesis.

Except she didn't. She teleported right to Weiss instead, collapsed on top of her, and managed to shift her lips onto what was left of Weiss' just before everything went bl