Disclaimer: See first chapter, but replace "Rooster Teeth" with "Viz Media".

Mercury Black

"Please, come in again whenever you need!" Ruby said aloud as yet another girl left the shop. Velvet leaned against the counter, the slowly disassembling form of Aneisadora sitting next to her.

"Why do you say things like that? They're going to have to come to you anyways. You're the only one who actually knows what they're doing it seems," Velvet asked.

"Seems good sense?" Ruby asked as an answer. "I don't know, it's what Dad told me to do and I haven't missed a step yet."

"That's fair. Can you check G3, I think the dust signal isn't getting through perfectly well, there's a bit of a delay it seemed last mission."

"Sure, sure," Ruby said, taking out her weapon repair kit. Really, Aneisadora took a few more specialized tools but sometimes just checking joints and areas required a bit more brute force.

"Coco's been driving me mad lately. You know that Goodwitch wants us to organize the dance this year?" Velvet brought up. "She's been nothing but talking about it for the last week."

"That's a pretty high honor, isn't it?"

"Honor is a bit much," Velvet answered. "It's more like responsibility. No, she wants us to do it because we screwed up a mission two weeks ago. No one got hurt, but it caused one of the outlying towns to lose a warehouse of food."

"That's a pretty serious thing?"

"It could be. But you know, it's us. We were taking care of things, and Yatsu decided to smash an ursa into Coco, who reacted by punching it through the wall. Then more Grimm popped out into the wall, and now they lost a full warehouse."

"But no one was hurt?"

"No, no one was hurt, Ruby," Velvet said again. "Come on, we're more professional than that."

"You say that, but maintenance on Aneisadora is proving otherwise..." Ruby hemmed and hawed as she looked through it. She had definitely taken a beating here, and the G3 structure wasn't the only thing with faulty dust wires. The entire underlying structure had taken some hefty damage, and Ruby grabbed a spool of spare wire she had hanging around.

"Okay, so maybe I need to treat her better," Velvet whined.

"Yes, yes you do," Ruby agreed instantly. Velvet gave her an annoyed look. "I'm just saying," she said, holding out her hands. In another moment flower petals were everywhere as she hurriedly fixed the wires, taking them out and putting new ones in, hopefully ones that would take a while for them to degrade. "Should I put in supports for some of these you think? How often do you get tossed and turned?"

"Not too often. That's mostly Yatsu and Fox. Coco stays in the back and we've found that to be a pretty good pattern."

"So if I were to leave it like this, it wouldn't come back in a week needing everything to be replaced...again?" Ruby asked with more than a hint of teasing. Fortunately Velvet wasn't offended, and mildly blushed instead.

She gave a quick look. "Should be fine. What about this one here, this shouldn't be loose," she said, pointing to a small connection directly to the aperture. It was one of the data carrying wires, and thus Ruby knew it had to be strengthened by a lot.

"No, that was coming next," Ruby agreed, making sure that everything was connected as it should. "Alright, and dust is cleaned," she said.

The door chimed again as someone walked in. "I'll be with you in just a second!" Ruby said loudly. The grey haired teen walked in, sitting down next to the arena. What was his name...Mercenary? No. Quicksilver.

Mercury, that was it. "Oh sure, not a problem. Take your time, not as if I'm a customer yet," he waved it off.

Velvet gave her a look that asked if she was alright dealing with him. Ruby gave a quick roll of the eyes before she put Aneisadora back together, all the paneling snapping together and being bolted in place. "Alright, ready for the test?"

"No thanks, it'll be a while before the next combat class or mission. And I need to get going, this is only my second stop and I have five more. Coco's been piling my scroll with messages of things I need to get," Velvet complained, holding out her scroll. Ruby could see that top contact was Coco, with twelve unread messages. Thirteen, actually, as she'd just received another one.

"Thanks Ruby!" Velvet said, heading out of the shop. Mercury gave a groan as he forced himself up. Ruby held up one finger as she quickly typed in Velvet's lien information, long since memorized which probably wasn't a good thing, and charged her the right amount.

"You uh...that happen often?" Mercury asked. "You're a weaponsmith right, that means that you do that service of a customer thing?"

"Sorry, I had to make sure to charge her. Sometimes she's in such a hurry she forgets to pay so I make sure she doesn't forget to," Ruby explained. Mercury nodded, his face showing confusion. Ruby didn't blame him, what she said didn't make sense to her either.

"Right...right. Hey look, can you keep something on the down low?" he asked, leaning in over the counter.

"Depends. It's not illegal?"

"Not one bit. See, I had a bad accident a few years ago, and lost my legs because of it," Mercury explained, "but the prosthetics I use, well, they're hidden weapons. And they've been...jamming."

"Put them here and go sit in the chair," Ruby commanded. Mercury gave a fake Atlesian salute, a real mockery of it too, it was actually kind of impressive, and sat down on the chair next to the counter. Ruby had put it there initially for talking out custom mechashift weapons, as that wasn't something to do while standing up, but it was useful for this, too.

Mercury gave a half-hearted grumble as he rolled up his pants, and Ruby saw for the first time what he was using. Specialized RL-34 Magnum Retro's. Those things weren't just expensive; they were considered to be the best on the market! They were a dull grey, and Ruby could almost see the internal workings already.

Mercury disengaged them, putting one on the counter before working on the other. They worked by using a combination dust and electrical signals to mimic the actual limb, with of course a few surprises.

"What kind of jamming problems?" Ruby asked as she looked through the first one. It went up to his mid-thigh. Whatever accident had happened to him, it had to have been traumatic.

"Eh, the firing mechanism isn't wanting to work. I can't tell if it's in the barrel, the actual trigger, or if the hammer's just broken. And you know, I wanted out of the house for a while," Mercury said, fully relaxed as if he wasn't surrounded by dozens of weapons.

Ruby nodded, and swiftly had the backend open. The mechanics of this thing were absolutely stunning, she had to admit. It was a top of the line limb, for certain, especially for Huntsman, but that was it...there was no customization here. It was the default. She noticed that Mercury was only barely glancing at her, despite the fact she was essentially acting as a doctor to a prosthetic limb. As to why he didn't go to Atlas, Ruby didn't know. She was closer, that was for sure.

But Atlas was in town for the Vytal Festival in a month or two. They had to have their own doctors and weaponsmith's to take care of things like this.

Ruby shrugged internally, even as she took out more of the firing mechanism of the internals. It used a side-load layout, allowing most of additional ammunition to come in from the side of the main barrel. That meant there was a specific motion that needed to be used in order to reload. Even if it was just an 'errant twitch', it had to be done. And could only hold around sixty shots. With each leg, that's a hundred twenty. Not much for Grimm hunting.

Then again, she was also on the basis of 'more is more', and Crescent Rose could carry nearly two hundred shots on the shaft alone. It weighed it down a lot, but she was working on that part.

"Found it," Ruby smiled after a moment. "Build up of gunk and oil in the hammer hinge," Ruby said, quickly gathering up some oil remover and polish.

"Huh. You're the real deal," Mercury said quietly. "I wasn't sure where it was and I know those things inside and out."

"You usually do your own repairs?"

"Usually have to," Mercury admitted. "But, it's not so bad. Forced downtime, makes me end up going slower...yeah, it's not so bad," he said.

"Slowing down isn't always a good thing when you're hunting Grimm," Ruby said sagely.

"Right. Grimm, yeah," Mercury said offhandedly. "You make that one yourself?" he asked, pointing to Crescent Rose on the shelf. "What is it?"

"High impact sniper scythe!" Ruby cheered as she went to grab it, unveiling it in all its glory. Mercury seemed almost taken aback for only a moment, before the laziness came back to him.

"Huh. You don't say? You good with it?" he asked.

"I'd say I am, but Dad says otherwise when we're training. I'm better with it than most of these other ones," Ruby said, showing the dozens of guns and weapons around the store.

"You know how to use all of these?"

"The guns aren't much more complicated than 'point and shoot'. It's the maintenance that's the hard part on those. The melee weapons are easy to understand, but hard to master. Easy maintenance on those, too."

"Suppose."

"Alright, that's this one done. What's wrong with this one?" Ruby said, looking at the other one. Mercury hurriedly grabbed the one that she'd finished with.

"Oh, that one's been squeaking a bit when I run into things. I think it's rusted," Mercury said. He grit his teeth as he activated the connection point, and slowly stretched out the leg as it reattached to his nervous system.

Ruby looked through it, slowly taking it apart. This one was actually customized, but not a lot. It just had an extra few barrels put into the boot. Nothing too extraneous. Whatever type of Huntsman Mercury was, it didn't totally revolve around combat it seemed. She pitied whoever went up against him in the Vytal Festival.

She grabbed her rust cleaner, putting it onto a small cloth as she rubbed through it. It wasn't badly rusted, and honestly if Ruby was thinking about it barely squeaked at all. It's hinges weren't rusted, the main areas were, the things that wouldn't squeak.

But if Mercury wanted to pay her extra for this kind of thing, who was she to decline it? As long as he wasn't stealing from her, unlike what his counterpart Emerald tried on accident last time, she was fine. She ran a rust-resistant cloth down the areas, making sure that it would get everywhere that rust was building up. "Alright, good to go!" she said cheerfully, pushing the leg back towards him.

Swifter than she almost could see, Mercury grabbed his leg and grit his teeth again as this one reconnected to his nervous system. "Doesn't that hurt? I thought those ones required a painkiller before they got connected?" Ruby asked.

"Eh, it's not so bad. Do regular maintenance on them, at least of the normal kind, and you get used to it kinda quickly. Especially out in the wilds," Mercury answered. "So how much I owe you for this?"

He was grinning at her, but there was a sad undertone to it, as if he really wanted to do something else but wasn't allowed to for some reason. "Oh, uh...two thousand."

"Even?"

"Yep! Didn't take me that long, and it's just regular maintenance. That has a regular price!" Ruby grinned. Mercury blinked before he reached for his wallet.

His hand froze. "Ah, wouldn't you know it but I forgot my wallet-"

"Your partner did forget some lien last time you were here," Ruby suddenly remembered, rushing over to it. "I could just take it from this and give you the rest!"

"...Yeah, that'll work," Mercury grumbled.

Yang, Part Two

"Come on Zwei, we still have a few more blocks to go!" Ruby called out. Zwei, the cute little corgi that he was, was running in front of her. His little stubby legs were running almost as fast as she was...and she was using Petal Burst. Sometimes. In order to keep up.

How Zwei managed to get so fast with such little legs, Ruby didn't know but she wanted to find out because that was an awesome little trick.

They were out on a 'walk', better known as letting Zwei use the restroom when he didn't want to use the actual restroom, early in the morning. Normally she wasn't an early riser back on Patch, but over the last few months owning her own shop required that she get up before dawn sometimes.

Naturally that meant her usual 'circadianic rhythm' she thought it was called, according to some of the health books she had on her scroll that Signal made her study, was all out of whack. She'd gotten used to it now, another thing called 'adaptability' or something.

She still had an hour or so before she had to open up, and only around five blocks to go. She'd make it in time without any problems.

There weren't too many people around this early in the morning. Some still were, including a few Huntsman and Huntresses, but mostly the streets were empty. Cars were parked along the side, giving an illusion that the city was busier than it actually was.

The air was chilly, too, a reminder that once again it was going to get colder before it got warmer. It was going to be hot, far beyond normal, next time she had a forge day. Which was...in like what, a week? Not too far in advance now, she'd gotten along much better with her blacksmith friend.

Especially as she actually paid on time and correctly. Apparently he'd been screwed over multiple times by people asking to use his forge and then not paying him.

She turned onto the block that her shop sat on. Zwei had passed her long ago, and now he was sitting next to the red-locked door, his tongue hanging out happily. She was glad for it; running was not her strongest of suits. She was good at it, sure, but that was a far cry of running to enjoy it!

"Hold on Zwei, just need a moment," she murmured, breathing hard as she reached down for her scroll. A moment later the password was entered, the PIN was entered, and she was back in the slowly warming up air of Summer's Weapon Shop.

Zwei immediately bounded towards the restroom, hogging it instantly. "You could have gone outside! You're a dog Zwei, you can go where dogs go!" Ruby shouted at him. He answered back with a quiet bark, deadened by the door between them.

The door chimed. "Hi, sorry, not open-" Ruby said, before turning around and getting grabbed by her sister Yang.

"Ruby! Oh I've missed you little sis! And what do you mean you're not open yet, the door's unlocked and that means you're open!" she grinned.

"Yang I just got back. Like not even five seconds ago. You probably saw me come in."

"I mean, yeah I did, and I ignored the sign saying that you weren't open yet, because you changed the password on your door lock so now I can't come in and bug you randomly!'

"...You were doing that? I don't remember you doing that."

"I mean, I hadn't yet but I was planning to!" Yang grinned. "So how's my favorite little sis doing?"

"I'm you're only sister."

"Hence you're my favorite! Don't get hung up on the details," Yang said, waving her hand around. "When's your next free day? It's been a while since we've hung out, just you and I..."

Ruby got a niggling idea in her head. "You want to go shopping don't you."

Yang froze. "I mean...why wouldn't I want to go shopping with my favorite littl-"

"And you want me to pay for it because you've already paid me a lot fixing Ember Celica for you, or you want to talk to me about revising her."

"...The second one, actually. Did you know we actually get paid in Beacon? Not well, but for minor jobs and things like that? I've been taking an odd job here and there for the last few days, and I want a break. And to break something."

Truthfully Ruby had no idea. It made only a vague amount of sense. They were doing actual work, so they got actual paid. She wished by now she could have an assistant to help out, but so far she hadn't gotten any takers. It hadn't helped that she hadn't even put out a small sign saying 'help wanted'.

"Well, training arena's right there," Ruby pointed out, "And we sparred not that long ago."

"Eh, training's not really my thing. No, I'm thinking we need to break the bank!"

"I'm not robbing a bank with you."

"No, silly! I want to break the bank, as in spend a lot of money! Come on, we haven't done a shopping day as sisters in ages!"

"Yang, the last time we went shopping was when you dragged me to the strip mall so you could drop me off at the craft store while you went and did things behind the field with your then boyfriend that no sister wants to think about!"

"...Ah, Ruby, you do care! I'd completely forgotten that."

"I didn't," Ruby deadpanned. Although that had actually been a pretty good day, especially because the 'Guns & Bullets' magazine selection had been on sale, and the game store was right next to it. And if Ruby had a little extra left over funds to be used towards buying specific bolts and metal parts for the creation of Crescent Rose...well...

"But hey, what about the time before that!?"

"You left me alone in the warehouse store because you needed to use the bathroom. For two hours."

"Hey, I was sick that day."

"I wasn't the one bringing it up," Ruby tried. Yang gave a half-hearted glare. "And the time before that...I was...what, twelve?"

"No, I think thirteen. Dad never let us go that often," Yang tried to remember. "Two years ago? Three times in two years. Come on Rubes, we never hung out much as actual sisters."

"To be fair, you were busy being my mom," Ruby answered without heat. "And I think it worked out well. Look at me now!"

"Seriously, my baby sister has a shop of her own, living on her own, because of one mistake."

"...Five mistakes."

Yang stared at her. "I'm sorry, how did you get expelled from Signal again? I don't think I heard the full story."

"And you never will!" Ruby answered instantly, shouting. "But fine if you want to go out then I have an hour to spare just make sure you never ask about Signal again and maybe eventually I'll answer you if I'm not already out in the middle of the forest for all time because I'm just out there killing Grimm that sounds like a great idea let's do that instead Zwei lock up after we're gone bye!"

Ruby turned into a burst of flower petals, heading out the door instantly. Yang stared after her.

The red cloaked girl stood outside the door waiting impatiently for Yang to come out. If she wanted to go shopping so badly with her then the least Ruby could do is actually go with. It was unlikely that Yang would just use this chance as more reason to try to hook up with someone.

Yang eventually left the shop, with a confused look on her face. "You okay Ruby? You shouted some things and then left," she asked. She looked at her scroll, Ruby hearing messages being sent left and right.

"I'm fine. Let's go shopping you said. I have a bit of time before I need to be back," Ruby said, glancing down at her own scroll as she locked up. Having a lock keyed to the scroll was incredibly convenient, but it made Ruby worried that it was easily hackable.

Then again, a normal key and lock could be picked too, so they both had their benefits and negatives. "Sure thing, sis," Yang said. "You know any good clothing stores around here?"

"There's one just up the road, but it's not open yet. They don't usually open until around ten. Why do you need to do this now, wouldn't it be best to wait? Is something going on with your team?"

"No, no, everything's fine. Blake's managed to even calm down so not every two seconds is hyper focused on the White Fang," Yang explained. "No, I uh...there's a dance coming up."

"The one hosted by Beacon that CFVY got conned into organizing?" Ruby asked.

"How do you know that!?"

"Velvet told me, just the other day," Ruby answered. "Apparently they accidentally destroyed a food warehouse one of the smaller fringe towns had and was saving up food in."

Yang winced. "Yeah, they tell us not to do that. Causes bad blood between them and Beacon."

"So Ms. Goodwitch assigned them to take care of organizing the dance."

"Ouch. That's one way I guess to make sure you don't mess up in a mission. And I thought detentions were bad."

"Did you finish serving all of yours for the dock incident?" Ruby asked. "Last I checked you still had a few left."

Yang let out groan. "Don't remind me. Goodwitch has them separated out over multiple weeks so we don't get ideas into our heads. Not that it's stopping Blake though..."

"She ever forgive me for calling her parents for her?"

"Eh, she's willing to talk to you. She actually came in the other day but Zwei was manning the counter. Said she heard voices coming from the back."

"Oh, I might've been negotiating a contract. I had Zwei man the counter that day, because they want, get this, nearly eighty small fire rifles."

"Eighty!?" Yang answered immediately. "And that didn't set off any red flags or major alarm bells to you? What are they going to do with eighty rifles?"

"Probably using them to outfit a small garrison out on the fringe towns. That's what they said, anyways. Largest single order I ever got. It's all small fire anyways, it's not going to hurt any Hunter as long as they have aura."

"And how much ammunition?"

"Lots. Like, a lot a lot. Nearly cleared me out with them grabbing it all. I had to do an emergency order for more just in case more Vytal Festival people show up."

"You excited for all that?"

"For the Vytal Festival!? It's one of the biggest reasons to have a shop with premises at the moment. Literally all the shop owners are excited for it."

"I'd bet. You can see cash signs already," Yang said, punching her fists together. "Think you can help me pick out a dress for the dance though?"

"I'm terrible at things like that."

"Mostly I just want you to tell me if it's too revealing."

"Yang, it's a dance. What kind of dance would you need a dress for oh it's one of those formal dances isn't it?"

"That's what I've been hearing."

"Wouldn't it better to wait for the actual details before trying to buy something?" Ruby asked. "Seems like that would be the best idea."

"Probably. But I have time now, and with my favorite sister to boot! And besides, I don't plan on buying it now, just keeping it in mind for when it happens. As a team we have to take a few more assignments first."

"Huh. Wonder if I should put myself up on that board..."

"Don't be stealing jobs from us sis!"

"No, I mean as a client," Ruby said. "I have a lot of deliveries that are going to be made, and I have a hover cart but making all of those on foot in Vale is...not the best decision. These days."

It took Yang a few seconds to remember about Torchwick. "Oh right, yeah that's a good idea. Talk to Dad about it, he'll know."

Light and fluffy, the way this story should be.

Without a hint of foreshadowing. Nope. None.

Also, this fic officially has more reviews than my other epic length story, Blooming Tides! With only 20 chapters, versus its 82. Also has more views than just about everything I have combined. (I have not done the math.)

Until Next Time!