Ruby retired to her dorm alone, but feeling better. A little better. She felt like, so long as she went to bed right this moment, she'd be able to get a normal night's sleep.
Her phone buzzed.
"No," she groaned to herself. "God dammit no."
She untied her jacket from her waist, ignoring the notification, but another buzz came. Then another. Then another. Buzzing, buzzing, someone was blowing up her phone and for fuck's sake, she just wanted to sleep!
Ruby whipped out her phone as if that would make the serial texter feel her anger.
[7 new messages from monkeking]
Ruby almost threw her phone, but managed to rein herself in with deep breaths as she opened the notification.
monkeking: DUDE
monkeking: DUDE
monkeking: DUDE
monkeking: DUDE
monkeking: I FOUND IT
monkeking: THE WARWHOUSE
monkeking: THERE HERE
Now Ruby threw her phone, though she also used her Semblance to catch it before it had a chance to shatter on the wall. She sighed.
rubrtubr: wya
monkeking: [ LocationData - Download - 1.4KB]
Ruby put the address in her navigation app, quickly changing into some basketball shorts and putting a dark hooded sweatshirt on. She rolled up the sleeves and got her feathers comfy, feeling an odd shiver of unrest going up and down her spine as she adjusted the pinions. She cracked her neck. Her neck wanted more, so she strained it opposite out of spite.
She caught juniper and Dust; she was still wearing the shirt and— since Weiss had apparently brainwashed her by now— she associated the smell with the intense relief that washed out all her tics, making the dissatisfaction in her neck whimper and hide away. Ruby's lips fought between annoyance and satisfaction.
rubrtubr: find somewhere safe 4 rdv
rubrtubr: omw getting my stuff
monkeking: rsv?
rubrtubr: rendezvous
monkeking: ?
monkeking: SPEAK VALISH WOMAN
rubrtubr: FIND A SAFE PLACE AND WAIT FOR ME
Ruby huffed.
rubrtubr: please.
She put her phone in her pocket, not checking when Sun replied. She geared up with her belt, her weapons (including gun and wires), binoculars, and a spare battery for her phone. If she was doing this, she wasn't gonna let herself get caught unawares.
The public airship ride to Greater Vale's southwest shipping district was empty, save for someone covered up with a big newspaper. Ruby sat opposite them and buckled her harness, feeling the lurch as the airship lifted off.
Ruby stared at the picture on her phone.
Frick, she wasn't ready for thus. She really wasn't. She'd never be. This was too her, she didn't even have a reason— Roman nearly killed her last time! This wasn't worth it! She should be carving a friggin' hole in this airship and getting out of here!
Except she was calm— shaking, yeah, but she was calm. Really. On the inside, she felt good about this. She'd handled Roman's loser minions with ease. She could've made a corpse of Torchwick if not for her anemia, but now she was riding off her post-class transfusion and at least 4 hours of real, actual sleep. She felt good.
Ruby looked at the other person in the airship.
A bright green eye stared back through a hole in the newspaper.
Ruby's hands slowly drifted to her weapons.
The person dropped their newspaper and held their hands up. It was fucking Penny.
Ruby flew out of her harness, springing to the back of the airship, drawing her buckler in her left hand as her right hand dove into the wire gauntlet. She flicked the buckler to 'KNIF', making the red plates unfurl into a broad hunting knife. Penny didn't move.
"Apologies," she said without a hint of sincerity. "Florabel, right?"
Ruby pressed her lips into a hard line. "Ruby."
"Well, I…" her eyes flicked to Ruby's knife. "How is your hand?"
"Fine," Ruby lied through her teeth, tightening her grip to hide the way her recovering fingers shook around the knife's hilt. "What're you doing here?"
Penny smirked. "I could ask you the same."
"Meeting a friend," she said truthfully. "He has something for me."
Penny's orange eyebrows went high. "That sounds pretty serious," she mused. "But aren't you a little young to be getting drugs in a place like that?"
Ruby pounced at the free out, hiding her smirk beneath a scandalized look as she wagged her weapons at Penny. "O-of course not! I mean— I'm— I don't do drugs!"
Penny grinned, her hands falling casually to her sides. "Let me guess… crake? Greylight?"
Ruby didn't even know what those were. "I'm not telling you," she asserted, holding down the need to pinch her shoulders back. "I don't do drugs."
Penny rolled her eyes.
"What're you doing here?"
Penny shrugged. She didn't meet Ruby's eyes. "Meeting some friends, I suppose."
"Rich of you to judge."
Penny snorted. "I'm not the one getting back-alley stimulants at 10PM."
"I'm not."
"Downers, then?" Penny hummed. "Ash?"
Ruby sucked in a real breath.
'W-what? Uh… why're ya asking, kid?'
'I… guess that's fair, uh…'
'I mean… yeah. The culture at the time was big on it— the counterculture, I mean, cuz me and Rae were big in the punk scene. It was super prevalent there.'
'Oh, we did everything, kid. Trust me. Starfish, papyrus, green, stims, pulvis, viv, zed, glass, you name it and me or Rae could probably give some kind of horror story.'
'Psh, of course they felt good, that's why we did them, but everything's a horror story in the end— for that kinda stuff, I mean— especially when ya see it from outside.'
'I can give ya more'n one, but… hmm…'
'Did you know these are veneers?'
'Glass. Amazing high, makes you super productive. I also straight-up lost about six teeth, and more than half of 'em looked like death itself. I spent my first bounty on fixing that mistake, rather than saving it for a down payment like Summer and Tai did. Terrible shit, kid, super not worth it, and the dealers are absolute psychos.'
'Ask your mom, it's her story.'
'Fine! Fine, just stop whining, jeez.'
'My sister was big on ash. It's really functional, makes you better at pretty much everything, and it's not super obvious. Hell, she used to do most of our missions with that stuff in her.'
'Don't tell Summer I told you any of this, by the way.'
'Anyway, she was still on it even after graduation, kept claiming she'd built an immunity to it. Idiot.'
'She overdosed all alone in some… fucking alleyway. God.'
'She's lucky Summer's a paranoid freak. She goes absolutely nuts when we miss a call from her, and Rae's phone had ten missed calls when we found her.'
'She died in the ER for about, uh… three minutes. They got her back, but she was in a coma for a solid week or two. Summer only left her side for the bathroom.'
'Yeah, that was it. Sum made her quit— for good reason— and I opted to join her. Sibling solidarity and shit. Clean ever since.'
'Then they started dating, then Yang, then they got married, then you.'
'Huh?'
'Oh. Y-yeah, kid, of course I do. Chasing the dragon as long as I have, the dragon doesn't ever just go away, but life is too good to go back to that, now. I got you kids, Rae and Sum, and…'
'Tai wouldn't want me to go back.'
"Ooooh, bingo," Penny muttered smirkingly, her gaze roving up Ruby's legs and over her feathers. "I'm not surprised."
Ruby went straight from emotional reminiscence to righteous fury, her claws going tnk-tnk as she stomped across the cabin.
"So easily angered," Penny jeered, raising a glowing green palm at Ruby warningly. "Misbehaving animals get caged."
Ruby ground her claws into the floor, stopping with an awful metal screech. She barely held herself still. She was in an airship. She'd survive the fall with her ability, but then she'd be responsible for crashing an airship, which would probably extend past her legal immunity as a Huntress.
With all the grace of a puppet made of rusted iron, Ruby managed to creak her way back to her seat and buckle her harness.
"Good bird," Penny taunted.
"I am a person," Ruby ground out through her teeth. "Does it feel good to be such an asshole to someone you don't know? I was nice to you when we met, you were the one who started spouting off racism!"
Penny narrowed her gaze, but said nothing until the airship landed. Ruby went the opposite way from Penny, just to throw off any suspicions before she rounded towards Sun's location.
monkeking is typing…
rubrtubr: ship just landed omw
monkeking is typing…
Ruby scowled at her phone, following her navigation for a few more minutes before checking the chat with Sun again.
monkeking is typing…
Bad. Bad, bad, bad, but she didn't have a choice. Sun was probably doing this recon for her, so he was her responsibility now— even if he wasn't in her team, she felt like his leader— and she wouldn't leave another Faunus to the mercy of a rally full of Fourths. She picked up her pace, blinking to the broad rooftops of unoccupied buildings once she got within a few buildings of the spot. Before long, she found the only warehouse with lights on.
She slipped her wires on, crouching low as she approached. She couldn't see Sun.
monkeking is typing…
Shit.
The spot where he'd sent his location was empty, so he was either hiding and (for whatever reason) not checking his phone or (more likely) he'd been captured. Taking out her binoculars, Ruby scoped the warehouse.
People milled about in brick-red robes with their flowing sleeves and skirts bundled tight, the extra fabric pinned up out of the way of walking or working. They moved with casual ease and made smalltalk among themselves, some carrying nondescript crates, some milling in lines with clubs or rifles, looking altogether like any ol' militant religious cell just having a pleasant night. Ruby tried to peer into the wide entrance, but she couldn't get anything from this angle. She retreated from the edge of the rooftop and slowly rolled onto her back. She stared at the stars above.
How many had she counted? Ten? Twenty? Either way, it was a lot of people, with a promise of even more inside.
Why wasn't she nervous? Why wasn't she panicking? She was about to rush into a literal den of violent racists and all she could do was sigh. Maybe it was the sleep, and/or the total lack thereof. Maybe it was another bout of insomnolent psychosis.
The stars were pretty, the sky clear and blue, Vale's light pollution alleviated by the lack of active buildings in the shipping district. She could make out the Crux constellation, and her eye instinctively followed its horizontal brace until she found the Sickle— old Second habits.
She wondered if Weiss did the same tonight. Did her partner naturally follow the Crux south until her eyes landed on the Crown?
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: [Website Link - The SCIENCE of Supremacy]
rubrtubr: dude this is literal racist propaganda. im not reading it.
rubrtubr: what even would be the point of showing me this
rubrtubr: like, are you *trying* to get your ass kicked again?
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: THOU COULDST TRY
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: BEAST
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: HEATHEN
rubrtubr: you should just combine those two since u use them so much
rubrtubr: heast
rubrtubr: beathen, perchance
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: SUCH WOULD DIMINISH MINE HATRED FOR THEE
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: WHICH I WOULD NEVER
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: I LOATHE THEE TOO MUCH TO REDUCE INTO AMALGAM-WORDS
rubrtubr: awe i loathe u too princess
rubrtubr: [Attachment - Download - 2.1 KB]
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: WHAT IS THIS
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: THIS BE A PICTURE OF THY MIDDLE FINGER
THYFINALICYEMBRACE: THOU WOULDST NOT BE SO CRASS TO MY FACE! COWARD!
rubrtubr: look up from ur phone then dumbass
Then Weiss had looked up from her phone, seen Ruby flipping her off (they were, after all, sitting right next to each other), and promptly erupted with fury that she had to restrain until they were out of class. It was the last thing she'd texted Weiss outside the group chat.
rubrtubr: [LocationData - Download - 1.9 KB]
Did she need to? No. Was it the safe and smart thing to do? Absolutely. Just in case.
She considered sending the same thing to Jaune, but she didn't want to get him entangled in all this— plus, he might snitch on her ('for her own safety'), and if he jumped in recklessly (like she was) to rescue her then it'd just be all three of them in Fourth hands.
She'd rather have Weiss (a Fourth) engage with all these Fourths. Maybe she'd know whatever slur the password was supposed to be and she could spy-movie her nemesis (and this guy she didn't know) out. If Ruby got caught, she'd much rather be saved by the worst person she knows than get defeathered in some weird murder ritual (which she could picture with suspicious clarity), but it wasn't like she expected to get caught. She wouldn't. She'd been sneaking out of the house since she was, like, eleven, and she'd been caught far fewer times than not. Ravens are notoriously stealthy.