Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Taking it to the SDC!

Ruby stared down at the order sheet. She'd done this how many times already, and why was it that each time she did it was harder than the last! Exception that first time. It was later at night, after the shop had already closed. Taiyang and Qrow hadn't shown up today, nor was Ruby expecting them to. They had their lives, and they were still Signal teachers, although Qrow had his special 'missions', because he never officially retired from being a huntsman.

Her scroll had beeped at her a few times, warning her of a few deadlines she had coming up. Most of them were when the owners would come by to pick up their weapons. Jaune's was due tomorrow, but she had long since fixed his up. He could have gotten it two days ago without any problems.

But the big one was at the top of the list, and the one she was absolutely dreading.

Calling the SDC for another dust order.

She'd think that by now she'd have gotten used to it. But each time she tallied up however much the quote was, and it was supposed to be easy, but each time she did it hurt the account more and more. The SDC was raising prices all across the board in Vale, and she'd been talking it over with some of the other shopkeepers that it was starting to get to the point they couldn't afford to keep dust.

Between the White Fang thefts of transports, Roman Torchwick being a thief in Vale itself, it was rough being the SDC, or so they claim. So instead they raised prices, using that as an excuse to add more security.

The problem was that Ruby hadn't seen it. There was no additional 'security' added to the boxes when shipped. No additional personnel, no more robots, none of it. Instead, it seemed to Ruby that they were just raising prices because they wanted to make more, and the demand was great enough to do it.

Zwei gave a soft whimper and pushed the scroll to her hand. Right, she needed to actually order, not just sit around in her pajamas railing on the SDC over something they wouldn't change. Could change, yes, but wouldn't.

The quote process was much the same as what she'd always done, and she almost passed over a message that said now the SDC was raising rates again in her area due to 'negative behavioral traits'.

"I hate monopolies," Ruby groaned. She kept the screen up for the quote as she looked through a bit of her notes, having written down her exact inventory and how much she needed to get for the month.

"Okay, let's see, thirty crystals purity forty of red, forty of sixty red, ten of eighty red, that's going to be an ouch," Ruby muttered as she added more to the quote. As the numbers went up, she hesitated more and more. "Nine of twenty white, thirty of fifty white, thirty two of fifty five white..." she kept going.

It took her far too long, but eventually the quote was set, and she almost wanted to delete it rather than look at the bottom price. The higher the purity, the more expensive it was, and weapons generally needed more of the pure variety. If a red's explosion was needed for a thousand newtons of force, then five hundred newtons wouldn't do anything.

Fortunately, most people used basic dust for ammunition, and it was mined by a different company altogether. They shipped only in pre-made cartridges, and to be honest ammunition was her biggest seller and what she made the most money on.

Dust was...somewhere down beneath custom weapons and above pre-made weapons. More common than most pre-made weapons, but Flare was going to end their session soon, which meant dust was going to be needed all too soon.

And with the incoming Vytal Festival, she needed to keep her stock as high as possible for when newer people came in. It wouldn't do to suddenly not have stock when she needed it to.

Ruby took a deep breath, and scrolled down to the end quote. She breathed an immediate sigh of relief, it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be. The rate increase was annoying, but fortunately not deal breaking.

She dialed the number, fortunately not needing Zwei to punch it in for her, as she rang up the sales rep. "SDC, this is Lapis of the dust shipping center," the familiar voice sounded.

"Hi Lapis, this is Ruby Rose of Summer's Weapon Shop-"

"Ah, Ruby! Yes give me one moment to get your account on my screen..." Lapis said. That was one reason why Ruby hesitated to call. Lapis was...well, she knew what she was doing. And Ruby didn't, even as much as she'd been doing this so far. "Okay, it looks like we have another few standard quotes here. Which one were you thinking of going with?" she asked.

"Probably the latest one, that one's tonight. Quote, hold on I had it somewhere...DSQ 1033234."

"1033234..." Lapis repeated. "Oh wait, I see it now. Just put into the system. Would you like standard Valean and small business owner discounts applied?"

"I would like to try to not starve making rent at the same time," Ruby answered. Ooh that was painful, darn it Ruby, be more gentle! She did not need the sarcasm right now!

Fortunately, Lapis laughed. "I can certainly understand that. Alright, with standard discounts it comes out to..." she said, rattling off a number that was in Ruby's mind still far too high.

But she checked her account out and knew the numbers off hand by now, and knew what her monthly expenses were. She could handle a hit like that, and with Flare starting up again in a month or two, along with the Vytal Festival, she should see an inundation of custom orders. And custom orders meant a lot of money.

"Sure, that sounds good," Ruby agreed.

"Excellent! I'll have it shipped out to you once we get it ready. Do you want White Fang insurance?" she asked.

"That's...not a thing that comes with it? All the other ones came with that standard."

"Oh no, not anymore. Vale in particular has seen an increase in supply attacks. Mistral has regular bandit attacks too, so instead they just created the White Fang insurance afterwards."

"Why not call it supply chain disruptment tax? It's not like the White Fang's the only one that does it."

"I'll push along the idea to the Board," Lapis said easily, which meant that she had heard Ruby's request and was promptly throwing it aside. Ruby sighed. It was a common thing in Atlas, apparently, to blame everything on the White Fang, but she had literally just said that bandits were the regular problems in Mistral!

She didn't have to worry about any of that, really though. "How much additional is the insurance?" Ruby asked. It was going to be a painful amount, and Lapis only smiled over the scroll and told her a number that made her heart stop for a brief moment.

"Fine, fine," Ruby said. "What are the terms for it? Just regular disruption insurance?" she asked. Disruption Insurance was a thing she would have learned in the last two years of Signal, and was essentially paying in case something happened she'd get a full refund. Something, in many cases, were Grimm attacks. There's nothing really stopping most of them, except hunters, and even then they had to be in the right place at the right time.

"Essentially. Just according to dust records, and giving you priority for shipping."

So it was a waste of money that was begging the SDC to give her preferential treatment because she could pay more. Of course it was! Ruby threw her head back against the couch. "Fine. I don't like it, but I kinda need it."

"As a reminder, this doesn't come with regular thief insurance once it gets to your location as a delivery."

Ruby sighed. "I get it. I'll make sure I'm here, or someone else is that can take it in," she said. Lapis was grinning widely, probably because she was about to make a ton of money off commission. That was, assuming the SDC sales center did commission. It would be entirely in character for them to say they did, but find ways to take money back. In Ruby's mind, at least.

"Perfect! Okay, so I'm sending over a few documents, most of these are old but just in case we need to have a few more of these on file-"

"I didn't need to sign any documents the last few times," Ruby said, her eyes narrowing as she flipped back upright. Her scroll dinged as the messages came in, nearly four or five in a row, each with a document that she'd probably have to sign right there on the scroll.

"It's a new policy. Usually we'd have these shipped over to you in the actual boxes-" Ruby knew that was a lie, there had been nothing in those boxes except dust! She knew, she had to count every single crystal and fight for the two that were supposedly 'lost in transit' despite not having a space in the box! "But just sign and it'll all make sense."

Ruby growled as she looked at the first one. Simple terms and conditions. Fine, signed and sent, no issues there. The second was shipping confirmation, things of address and scroll numbers. Standard, fine.

The third one was a list of fees that could accrue. "Wait, what's this list of fees doing here? And what's this 'faunus dealing fee'?"

"Oh, that's so that way the SDC won't have to fear being sued in case you sell to a member of the White Fang!"

"No! Not signing that one," Ruby said. "This is a joke! Seriously, charging me extra just because I sell to faunus?"

"I assure you Ruby, it's no joke. The White Fang is ubiquitous, and they have a hold over all major territories. They are continually trying to drive the SDC out of business with their vicious tactics, and they don't care about collateral damage. They would kill their best friend if it meant an SDC worker would die."

Ruby had a hard time believing that. "I'm not signing the fee sheet."

"That's fine, it's optional."

"Then why would you require me to sign it!?"

"So that way you know what all the extra fees and charges are for! We like transparency here at the SDC, and we're not in favor of the closed door dealings that most other companies have."

Ruby stared at her. "You can't be serious if you actually believe that."

Lapis smiled and wrote something down, before saying, "It's only the truth Ruby." The sign she held up read, 'I know, but I have to say it.'

Okay, fine, she was dealing with customer service, right. Lapis probably had less choice on this than she did, and it was her livelihood on the line! "Alright, fine, let's look at this fourth one."

Ruby stared at it, her mouth dropping. "What...in Remnant...is this...?" she asked slowly. It was a simple announcement, saying that the SDC was looking for hard faunus workers, looking for a way to make a living working the good life. It had a picture of a faunus family smiling together, the father with a single large pickaxe hanging from his back.

"Oh, that's our recruitment piece! We ask every shopkeeper to post it where anyone can see it, and if you do you get a discount! The more you post it, the bigger the discount you get! Up to a maximum of ten percent, of course."

"Of course," Ruby said. Her mind whirred, and she looked at Zwei, who met her eyes with an evil stare. He was thinking the same thing she was. "You know what, I will go for that one. Ten percent."

"Oh excellent! Alright, all told, that makes your total..." Lapis went on, with a much larger number than Ruby was intending originally. She winced, and tried not to make it obvious it would hurt her account by...more than a significant portion. It was still a lot, but it was better than it had been thanks to that special discount.

Ruby hung up a few minutes later, the deal finally done. "So, Zwei, how many people do you think are going to want to use these as toilet paper?" she asked the corgi. He sat down onto the table, his tongue lolling out adorably.

Blake

The clocked ticked loudly, and Ruby stared at her ceiling. The bed was uncomfortably hot, and it was nowhere near spring or summer. It was getting into autumn actually. Her birthday was in...two weeks? Three weeks.

One week, actually. She'd been seeing signs of it all around the corner, that Halloween was close. Grocery stores were selling pumpkins and large bags of candy, costume stores had been popping up everywhere, almost on every corner. The dates on the calendars were snipping ever closer to that date.

And yet it was still too hot. It was normally quite chilled by this point, and she'd made her bed that morning on the intent that it would be cold.

Had the deal with the SDC really spooked her that badly? She couldn't imagine it wouldn't. She had been raised from a young age that everyone was equal, and the thing that should be used to differentiate people were their skills. Their bodies are their own.

And yet the racism at the SDC was...everywhere, it seemed. From adding hidden fees to subtle gaslighting. It was rampant, and there was nothing she could do.

She hadn't even realized most of it was that bad either. It wasn't until Tukson had took her aside a long time ago and explained every bit of it, the bits that he personally had experienced and the kind that most other faunus experienced.

When Ruby had gone down the wrong way, even before the whole shop venture had started, she hadn't realized she'd been in the slums of Vale. Let alone that most of the people there had been faunus of some kind, their bodies destitute. It had only been four or five blocks away from the general cleanliness that was the other section.

Which meant Vale was just as bad as everywhere else! Patch was better, if only because it was so small, but how could she handle it when there was so much wrong? She could fight Grimm all she wanted, but these were real world problems felt by real world people all the real world time!

She didn't understand it. There was nothing in her body that told her to try to understand it. All she could do was ride the wave and see if the knowledge came to her.

But trying to understand it, even thinking that it was possible to happen to her, made her ill.

She forced the covers up, giving a large yawn as she glanced at the clock. Only eleven. She had already done most of her chores, except dishes because honestly who wants to do dishes when they could do fun things like run the shop downstairs? Too late to do anything downstairs that wasn't already done. And she had work tomorrow, too! She needed to get to sleep...soon.

There was that book series though, the one that Blake had told her about. It was right there on her bookshelf, and part of her wanted to use it as an excuse to fall asleep easier, but as much as she appreciated the smut, the writing was really good.

Which was bad for trying to fall asleep, because it would hook her in and not let her go. No, reading wasn't the best of ideas.

She forced herself up, opening the window a bit more. Her bare feet pattered against the wooden floor as she felt the cold breeze attempt to chill her. She'd leave it open tonight, even though that was usually a bad idea even in this area.

A few glasses of water should help do the trick, too. She went to her kitchen, glad that she'd replaced the stove and the fridge. That had been harrowing, when Qrow had flown in here a few weeks ago, and everything just went wrong.

It was his Semblance, and she knew he had no control over it, but sometimes she felt he was doing it on purpose just to get a laugh. He was a troll like that, it felt.

Most of her glasses were dirty, and Ruby let out a groan as she realized she'd have to do dishes first. Well, that was a simple chore that would hopefully put her mind at ease. It took longer than she wanted, but it hadn't helped either. She went back to the bed, sipping gently on the cold water. She'd wanted warm, but she'd used up all the hot water with the dishes.

Zwei was asleep on his doggy bed, his eyes still closed and unbothered by normal things such as 'racism' or 'whether she could afford to buy more of his special aura-fied dog food'. She wasn't running out anytime soon, she got it special ordered from one of the local grocery stores. It was a much better deal here in Vale than in Patch, where it was three or four times as much. And also she bought long in advance.

Grudgingly, she flipped herself back, staying on top of the bed sheets. She was awake now, completely, and her mind wouldn't stop talking. The unfairness of it all...

The breeze out of the window suddenly went to a high gust of wind, and Ruby snapped herself up. In front of her was a girl, not much older than she was, white corset with black leggings and black shirts...oh it was just Blake.

Ruby blinked. "Hey Blake," she said softly. That was nice of Blake to suddenly come visit. "Sorry about the mess, I wasn't expecting guests this late at night."

"I...oh. Um...sorry for waking you, Ruby," there was a hesitance to her voice, as if she wasn't expecting Ruby to be up.

Ruby waved her hand. "I was already awake. Couldn't go to sleep. Shop's closed though so...hey waitaminute. Blake!?" she started. Her brain shifted gears, and suddenly she realized what was exactly wrong with this picture.

Blake wasn't afraid of Zwei! That wasn't normal! "Blake! Zwei! Hide!" she stuttered.

Blake looked around, seeing the asleep dog in the corner. Zwei raised his head, seeing the faunus standing there before he gave a small 'ruff' and laid back down, uncaring that there was someone else in his space. "Ruby, it's fine. I...just need a place to stay for the night," Blake protested.

Oh right it was also late at night, that was another sure sign that something was wrong. "Yeah, sure I don't have a problem with it. But uh...what's all going on? Why not go back to Beacon?" Ruby asked.

"There was an...incident. With another team. We...had some minor problems with them in the past, but this time around it got really bad, and...look I just need a place to sleep for the night."

Ruby pushed herself up, grabbing a chair and motioning for Blake to sit down. "And you came here. That's fine, I don't mind. But...I suppose if it's really bad."

"I...you already know I'm a faunus. And...I felt safe here."

"I'm glad you did," Ruby answered honestly. "Hopefully that's more of a present tense than a past one."

"I mean you talk with Yang regularly..."

"Blake I haven't talked with Yang in like a week. Mostly because of the way she punched Jaune's weapon out and broke it to the point I almost had to reforge it. Seriously, Blake, she punched it! Why would you do that!?"

"Because there was a Grimm?"

"There was an automatic firing cylinder cycled! All Jaune needed to do was to press the trigger, and it would've fired! She didn't need to punch it!"

Blake giggled. "Sometimes that's just how things are, Ruby. We can't always know what we're doing."

"Know what we're doing? Blake I have no idea what I'm doing!" Ruby said, before she forced herself to calm down. "Any case, you want the bed? I'll take the couch. Usually Qrow takes it when he wants to watch over me but doesn't want me knowing about it."

"Is that why your window was open?"

"No, that was because it was hot out."

"You leave your heater on? It's quite cold out right now."

"First thing I checked," Ruby said. "And thermostat isn't broken, I checked that too. And no, it should be cold but isn't. Want me to tell Yang you're safe and sound?"

The cat faunus looked away for a moment. "Preferably not. I'll...I'll talk to them. I just need some time."

"Hiding doesn't fix anything, Blake."

"It gives time, and that's what I need right now."

Ruby shrugged. "Alright, if that's what you want. I won't fight you on it," she said. "How long have you been out there?"

"...most of the day," Blake answered. "They...we had a fight this morning."

Ruby nodded. She was surprised that Yang or someone hadn't asked if Ruby had seen her. She would've expected that someone would remember that she lived in Vale.

"I spent some time with a few other faunus. You may have seen him, a tall blonde guy with a monkey's tail? Abs you could grate cheese off of?" Blake offered.

Ruby shook her head. "I don't think he's come through. Good date then?" She teased, leaning forward as it to hear easier. Blake flushed, but held her tongue. Ruby giggled. "Just teasing," she said.

She yawned a moment later, her mouth stretching wide. "Someone needs her sleep then," Blake teased right back. Ruby nodded, her mouth still open, before she managed to shut it.

It took only minutes for Ruby to pull out the couch into the makeshift bed that she had, and she had practically forced Blake into her bed for her to realize that Ruby wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Ruby's head still wouldn't quiet down though, even sleeping on the couch with only a small sheet on top of her. "Blake?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Ruby," Blake answered instantly.

That answered the question if Blake was still up or not. "You've...been in the White Fang," Ruby started.

"How...how did you know that?"

"Because I looked up old articles on the internet and there were pictures of you and your dad in there and you're really bad at hiding."

Blake took a few moments to answer. "That does explain a few things..."

"Seriously, why would you not change your name, at least?" Ruby asked. "But no, my question was...how do you handle it? All the stuff in the world, that makes it seem like it's never going to get better?"

"You've seen a few things against faunus then, I take it?"

"I was on the scroll with the SDC a few days ago. How...how does anyone handle it?"

"Some of us, not well. Some of us, too well. Just like humans, Ruby."

"I know that, and I know you know that, but why does no one else seem to care about that!?"

"We do. A lot of us do. That's what started the White Fang in the first place. My dad...he wanted a better world for my mom and me. He was willing to do anything to find it. The world was accustomed to violence already, so that wouldn't change anything. He asked himself if he wouldn't make a better mark by simply being...different."

"Did it work?"

"To an extent. We got more rights in Atlas, at least. Vale, too, followed Atlas. Whoever was the headmaster of Beacon before Ozpin made sure to specify that all prospective students were allowed in. Faunus or human, it didn't matter."

"Vacuo and Mistral?"

"Mistral was a grab bag. That's where my dad was focused on going next. But they have a big bandit problem, because they also have the biggest continent. Vacuo we never had much of an issue with. The harsh desert ensures that any and all people got along, because it was them versus it. And it didn't pull punches."

"But then...the White Fang now...Tukson explained a bit of things-"

"Did he? Good. He was always good at that, and de-escalation. He got out right before Sienna took over Dad's job and Dad went back out to Menagerie."

"So the new violence thing, that's because of Sienna?"

"Sienna Khan. And...not exactly. She wasn't against it, and that's enough for some of us. There's one in particular, his name is Adam, you might've seen him on the news. He took things to new heights."

"Who is he?"

"He was...is...a dreamer, but one with the power to do something about it. He's a monster, but he doesn't...he doesn't hold back. An idealist, who's been hurt and betrayed by the world, and in turn works to hurt and betray the world back."

"I can't tell if you sound like you like him or hate him."

"Hate, Ruby. Hate," Blake confirmed. "If you see Adam, or any sign of him...I want you to promise me to run. He will kill you, and he won't think twice about it."

"I promise," Ruby answered, quickly. Blake gave a hum of appreciation, before she rolled over, her black hair dangling over the pillow.

Ruby kept staring into the ceiling for the entire night, her thoughts not put at ease.

Wait, this story has a story!? Say it isn't so!

You may notice that this is getting fairly close, timeline wise, to the end of volume 1. This is true. Volume 1 has 16 chapters, I can confidently say. Also, my apologies for being late on this one, FFN was down and that's unfortunately where I currently keep my up to date edits. That said, that's probably going to change to google docs...

Until Next Time!