Ruby Rose
"How does it feel?" She had asked three times by now, each and every time was accompanied by a furrowing of Weiss' brow as she considered the question carefully. No doubt it was difficult to choose just one answer, but Ruby was still eager to hear anything. Ruby was seated at one of the many benches in the workshop, her chair spun around so she could watch Weiss. She herself was standing, arm outstretched and a thin metal rod in her grasp. Every once in a while, Weiss would give it a small swing or movement, the motions never getting too exaggerated.
Despite once again furrowing her brow, Weiss managed to give an answer this time. "It's... Odd." Ruby didn't even have to make a sound to voice her disappointment at the lack of volume to the answer, her folded arms and pout were more than enough. Weiss conceded to it and tried to elaborate. "I already told you I'm not the best mage. Casting spells above the basics in anything baring Ice Magic is a challenge." Unlike Ruby, however - who simply lacked the talent - Weiss was just incredibly out of practice. "Essentially... I can't tell if it helps."
"Doesn't help that you aren't actually casting any spells." Ruby's pout had leaked into her voice. "It's not exactly easy for me to make wands, it reaches from Silver Magic to Gold and that kind of messes with my brain." Most Mages or even Wizard's that crafted wands didn't run into this issue thanks to having equal aptitudes in the two sides. Ruby however existed in stark contrast to that, she had an incredible aptitude for Silver Magic even ignoring her Affinity, but a painfully awful aptitude in Practical Magic. The wildly different skill and talent levels left her unable to adjust between the two.
Looking at the wand in her hand once again, Weiss asked a question that had no doubt been on her mind for a while now. "Why is it made of metal? I thought wands worked best constructed from wood or softer materials?" Glynda's own wand came to mind, it was actually made out of leather, of all things. "From what I know, isn't it incredibly inefficient when the wand can't bend and flow with the Mana passing through it?"
Weiss was of course right in all points. However, Ruby had a particular idea in mind that required not just figuring out how to make wands, but ones made out of metal. "It's not the hardest thing I've ever had to figure out." Compared to the Dragon Formula, this was nothing. "Besides, I think I should be able to make a Relic that will be able to flow Mana just fine." Crescent Rose was by far a harder concept, even without counting the blade.
"Ok, but why?" Ruby had accidentally avoided the question, much to Weiss' chagrin. "Don't get secretive with me, I'd like to have some input on my weapon." She was a little annoyed with this whole thing, and it was showing slightly. When Ruby had told her about her plans to make Weiss a Relic, Weiss had been incredibly dismissive of the idea. Of course, she had tried to point to a few others that should no doubt come before her on the list of those to receive such a weapon, but Ruby already had reasons to dispute all those suggestions. "I still think you should be making one for Pyrrha."
Obviously, Pyrrha would be the correct choice given her power and choice of weaponry; however, Ruby was still adamant in her decision. "She wouldn't accept it... And even if she did, I doubt she would use it properly." For some reason, ever since Ruby had come back, she had been feeling a tinge of anger whenever she saw or even thought about Pyrrha. Weiss at least had noticed, so she chose not to push too hard on this particular point.
"Still... I think it's best you at least share your ideas about this weapon with me. I would like to know what to expect." No doubt she would have some ideas of her own too, but Ruby was more than confident that she had already thought up a perfect full-proof plan for this theoretical rapier.
Grinning, Ruby was actually excited to share her plans. "Ok, so the main issue with your current arsenal is-" Before she could finish speaking, a red light blaring across the trim where the walls met the roof drew both of their attentions. There was a low hum that slowly grew into a loud siren that no doubt was sounding in every room and hall across the castle. Ruby and Weiss would have found the sound painful with their sensitive hearing, but they had both previously heard the Rose Dragon's roar, and it wasn't a fair comparison. "The alarm?" Ruby kept her cool, standing and reaching behind her back momentarily just to double-check that Crescent Rose was there.
"I haven't seen this before..." Weiss muttered just loud enough to hear. It was a concerning thought given that she had lived in the castle for sixty years. Luckily enough, Ruby recognised it easily enough. It was her own work, after all. But it raised several questions that required immediate answers.
"There's an intruder in the castle." That was alarming for two main reasons. Firstly of which was that the castle's defences were stronger than even the barrier that surrounded Vale, meaning piercing through was no easy task. Secondly of which was the fact that if this particular alarm was going off, it meant that whoever it was had survived the castle's attempts to annihilate them when they breached said defences. "The enchantments woven into the castle are Intention Based Magic, it should annihilate anyone that came in without invitation or permission if I view them as a foe." So, someone strong enough had broken in that they had survived the enchantments assault? That could only mean one thing.
Weiss managed to put two and two together easy enough. "Salem's forces." But who? That was the important question. Ruby was confident in her abilities, and anyone equal to even Adam would be at the very least crippled by the castle's attack. Hazel was stronger than him, obviously, but this was far removed from his forte... He couldn't survive the attack either. Which to Ruby meant there was only one option.
"It's the Silver Wizard." Somehow, they must have broken in, countered the attack, but missed disarming the alarm. Ruby figured that must have been thanks to it being Intention Based Magic. "Go find Argus." Immediately, Ruby identified him as the target. The only other option was Ruby herself, but that was fine to ignore for now; Ruby was going to be searching for them herself. Vanishing in a cloud of rose petals, she moved through the halls as a streak of red too fast to see.
Only forced to slow down at corners, Ruby was careful to sweep every inch of the castle. Not a hallway skipped, not a room uncleared, not a turn missed. Every time she turned down a new hallway the expectation of seeing a foe left was left unfulfilled. As the seconds ticked on, Ruby began to feel a strange feeling well up inside of her. It was like a bright light, butterflies in her stomach, excitement; eagerness. Bloodlust, but it didn't feel malevolent, it felt happy. Disturbing didn't even begin to describe it; Ruby couldn't pinpoint exactly when such a feeling had become so normal to her for it to just pop up like that. It hadn't been from Rose, after all, all of that was gone now.
Before? After? Maybe it was a byproduct of that missing time. No matter what it was from, the result was the same; Ruby didn't like this feeling... But she wouldn't reject it. Even as she fought to keep herself from smiling.
Since leaving the workshop and Weiss' side, it had been only ten seconds. On the eleventh, she turned a corner and saw who was no doubt her target. Instantly, Ruby took note of three things. Firstly, they weren't alone; Summer was already there in her mastery form, baring down on the intruder. Secondly, the Mana coming off of this individual... There were three sources, all of which she recognised. Thirdly, Ruby realised she had been wrong in her earlier assessment of the intruder. There was another way they could have survived the castle's defences. Simply put, they never attacked them in the first place. This wasn't someone Ruby viewed as a foe.
Surging down the hallway, Ruby reformed between the small intruder and Summer, her hand catching her daughter's fist mid-punch and stopping it dead in its tracks. Her eyes were locked on the boy, glancing up and down and noting the differences in his appearance now. There was a break in his shaggy brown hair, a collection at the roots that was growing a silvery grey seemingly from stress. On his hip there was a small pouch tied to his belt, inside there was a device that Ruby would never fail to recognise the presence of; it was the flat sphere form of the Mind Wraith. And most prominently, there was that red cloak tied around his neck, the one that ignored light and always glowed the same colour.
"Oscar?" The earlier eagerness to kill had vanished quickly in a disappointing flash. "What are you doing here?" Ruby still kept a hold on Summer's fist, the girl was unable to push through nor pull back out of her grasp. Turning, Ruby shot her a gentle look that begged her patience. After a moment's silence, Summer relented and Ruby let her fist go as it calmly fell to her side.
"Ros-... R-Ruby..." His voice sounded as tired as he looked. There was something wrong, that much was crystal clear. He was a young boy, not even an adult for a human, yet there were bags under his eyes, wrinkles that stretched across his face in places that looked wrong on his chubby head. Oscar still looked like a boy, yet there was clear wear and tear that only age could produce somehow making its home on his expression. "I... I needed to see you."
"He brought the Mind Wraith and is wearing Rose's cloak..." Even if she wanted to be optimistic, it was clear that he wasn't just trying to return them. No, he had been attempting to use them on himself to no avail. Ruby had made them specifically to function on her and her alone, they were useless to and for anyone else unless she specifically changed that. "What happened?"
"I-" Before he could continue, Summer took a step and his vision snapped to her in fear. Glancing back, Ruby watched as Summer walked away.
"Shit..." Ruby had been too hasty, had she hurt Summer's feelings by stopping her attack so easily? Her instincts were propelling her to give chase, but her better judgement told her to stay. This couldn't wait.
Turning to Oscar again, she nodded for him to continue. "I... I need your help." Before she could even ask why, he continued and screamed, "Someone's in my head!"
Having returned to the workshop with Oscar in tow, Ruby explained the situation to Weiss before anything else. While reasonably angry that someone had broken into her castle, the queen was adamant about allowing him to stay given how he had assisted Rose to complete her work with the Mind Wraith. Now with the device returned to Ruby, she had to adjust it yet again.
Toiling away, Ruby set to work adjusting it to instead target Oscar's mind rather than her own. She didn't ask for evidence of this apparent person in his mind, she didn't ask who or why, Ruby only cared about stopping whatever it was that the boy was claiming was happening to him. Ruby herself had experienced being a prisoner in her own mind too many times to not feel a sense of panic about preventing anyone else from experiencing the same. Still, while she worked - and while Oscar sat nearby looking anxious - more people slowly began to flood into the room.
Before anyone else, Weiss and Argus were already here. It wasn't long after Ruby began working that Glynda and Qrow walked in without a word. Soon after, Blake and Yang followed. Around ten minutes later, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Neo. It was only Summer and the other kids who had elected not to attend, though Ruby was at first confused as to why everyone else had even come; even if she didn't want to distract herself long enough to ask.
Once everyone was present that would be coming, a gentle hand touched Ruby's shoulder to get her attention. Turning, she looked at Weiss with confusion before turning to the others. "What?" There was a strange air about their expressions, a gloom that spread from face to face mainly concentrated on Glynda and Qrow. "What's going on?" Only she and Oscar seemed to be confused about it.
"Ruby..." Glynda began carefully. "You... You need to stop." As Ruby's confusion further compounded, anger too reared its head. "We have to let it happen." Nervous didn't even begin to describe Glynda's voice, the shake to it was akin to the tremble of talking to ones superior. She was entirely aware of what exactly she was asking Ruby of all people to do; She knew that this wouldn't be a conversation shared with her great granddaughter, it was one she would have with the Rose Dragon.
Saying nothing, Ruby simply turned back around and continued her work on the Mind Wraith. "It's Ozma." Qrow's craggily voice sounded from behind her. The information explained a few things to Ruby, but it gave her pause for only a moment. "We need him back." They had been waiting for him no doubt. Weiss had shared what Ozpin had told her with Ruby just as she had told everyone else, though it seemed that only Ruby had failed to put two and two together. Oscar fit the requirements to a tee; despite what she herself had gone through; Magic meant to take over one's mind wasn't common.
"... What of you?" Glynda spoke directly to Oscar now; she had quickly given up trying to convince Ruby; The conversation she had dreaded had been rejected outright. "Surely he is speaking to you, telling you things. That's how you got into the castle, correct? He shared some of his Holy Magic." Ruby did take note of that, it explained a few confusions she still held onto.
Silence followed for a moment, before Oscar's own timid voice spoke up. He sounded tired, but not as nervous as Glynda herself had sounded when talking to Ruby. "... He's telling me all sorts of things... And, he wants out. He wants control..." As the boy spoke, Ruby's work picked up in pace. "... I can feel his mind pressing against mine, his Soul trying to meld with me..." How much had already been changed? Already he seemed to talk differently. "Information is flowing into my head... I can see flashes of his memories... Hear someone's voice..."
"Who's voice?" Weiss spoke now, oddly fixated on this detail. "What do they sound like?"
"It's a woman... No, that's not it." Struggling to put it into words, he fumbled his sentences before saying, "Like something trying to talk through a voice that doesn't exist." While it had been odd to fixate on such a thing, the way he described it led them all to think further on it. Logically, if it was someone important, there were two options.
"... Salem." Yang guessed.
"The World." Blake guessed.
"What's it saying?" Ruby asked, deciding that was more important. Still, her eyes didn't turn away from the Mind Wraith in front of her.
"All kinds of things... It's not talking to me; it's talking to him... I'm just hearing memories of their conversations. Names, places, events... It says your name a lot."
"The World." They all agreed.
Oscar kept going. "They talked about... colours. Lime was said a lot, apparently the voice is keeping it in check...?"
A brief flare of Magic had them all turning to look at Argus. The prince looked stressed, angry even. "... That's why..." His fist clenched at his side, only to relax when Neo rested a hand on his shoulder and gave him a soft look.
Stopping her work for a moment, Ruby's eyes were wide as she turned to Oscar again. "... You can get information out of him? Out of his memories?" Did that mean they could get answers? If Oscar learnt properly how to navigate Ozma's mind, then it was entirely possible that the boy could rip out his memories and search them as he saw fit. Glancing at the Mind Wraith briefly, Ruby pondered for a moment if it would impede such an idea... Before deciding that it wouldn't. After all, she was still technically infected. The Mind Wraith didn't remove such things, only gave the mind an immunity to them.
"What else have you heard?" Jaune pressed, hoping for answers himself. By now, Glynda had realised that she was outmatched in her goal to allow Ozma to continue, Qrow meanwhile seemed to not care either way.
Thinking for a moment, Oscar spoke slowly about something else. "Um... There's one memory, they were speaking about Rose and Dust? About how they're... different?"
"Different?" What did that mean? Was it a good or bad thing? "Do they mean... That Rose?" Ruby didn't exactly want to talk about her, nor about any of the time she spent as her. "But then what does Dust mean...?" Rose didn't exactly use Dust, certainly not more than the average person. In fact, she had all but run out not soon after she was created.
All of them took a minute to think, bouncing ideas back and forth but rejecting them all. Oscar tried to find more information about it, but what he could see and hear was only flashes, remnants of the full story. Eventually, Weiss had an idea. "What about the Dragon Titles? The Rose Dragon and the Dust Dragon?" It certainly wasn't a bad idea, but the question was why they were unique if that were the case. "They do seem to be outliers in terms of power."
Crescent Rose and the constantly overflowing Dust storage came to mind in that regard; Weiss certainly wasn't wrong. "Dust Dragon I get, but my power mainly comes from making Relics." Ruby didn't want to downplay what she was capable of, but the Rose Dragon was never that powerful before she made Crescent Rose.
"Except for when it disabled a couple Harbinger's with one roar." Qrow pointed out. "Also, just throwing it out there, both Rose Dragons so far have made Relics." Ruby couldn't help but frown when he casually grouped Crescent Rose together with the 'Dragon Slayer'... The great sword was frankly pathetic compared to her scythe.
"Assuming it's the Dragon Titles they're talking about... Is that just it? Power? Is that all the differences?" Blake voiced their collective scepticism, and soon enough all eyes had turned to Glynda. Sighing, she took her glasses off, revealing her Platinum eyes and turned to Argus.
Staring the prince down for a few minutes, Glynda then turned to Yang and did the same. No doubt she was looking for differences in their Titles. After, she did the same to Ruby before turning to Qrow and staring at him. Reading Title's like that was no easy task; Ruby herself had tried on multiple occasions but she was completely unable without the assistance of a Ritual. It was the main benefit of Platinum eyes, she supposed.
"Hm..." Standing up straight, Glynda looked troubled as she spoke with an uneasy voice. "There is a difference... But... It's an odd one." Turning to both Ruby and Argus, the latter of which had shuffled over to his mum, Glynda asked, "Tell me, how much do you both know about Chanting?"
Glancing at her son for a moment, Ruby shrugged. "You mean like... For Spells?" It was no secret that her capability in that department was laughable. Argus for sure knew at least the basics, but he had so little practice in the field that it was comparable to Ruby regardless. It wasn't as if either of them really needed to cast anything but the most basic Spells in the conventional way anyway.
Sensing their ineptitude, Glynda explained. "When you want to cast a Spell beyond what you are capable of, you need to pay a price. The most extreme cases can take all manner of things-" Such as Genesis, the Spell that resulted in the Great Erasure. "-But usually, if you want to push just beyond what you can reach, a chant is all that is required. Chants can range from a couple sentences to full speeches, but more often than not casting such things mid-battle is a death sentence." Ruby remembered the setup that Carmine required to use Long Memory, it would have been impossible for her to cast if Rose wasn't fully immobilized. "However… There is a way around this."
"Certain Titles." Qrow cut in. "Like the Harbinger and High Wizard Titles, they let you skip the shit."
Frowning at him briefly, Glynda continued. "Certain Title's come inbuilt with a system that supplants Chanting. Instead of doing a longer Chant, you can do a much shorter one and fill the rest out by simply invoking the name of your Title and the name of the Spell to cast it." It was the same thing that Qrow and Pyrrha had done during the Vytal festival so long ago. Now that Ruby thought of it, it made sense that Long Memory would require a much longer Chant; It was supposed to be one of the most complicated Spells after all. It was no easy thing to combine every kind of Magic.
"So... What's this have to do with us?" It was all fascinating, but not exactly illuminating yet.
"Dragon Title's don't provide this ability." Glynda answered simply. "Besides yours, apparently." She pointed to both Argus and Ruby.
That was the difference that Ozma and The World had been discussing? "... It doesn't really matter." Argus sighed with a disappointed shrug, to which Ruby nodded her agreement. "Neither of us would ever cast a Spell that would need it." The unfortunate truth, it was a bit of a waste.
"While that is the case, it may speak to a bigger difference." Weiss chimed in. "I don't doubt that there's a reason those two Titles are unique among Dragons... It would be wise of us to not assume that's where the differences end." She was right, of course. Still, for now pursuing the answers was pointless. They had no need to sit and wonder about it when a method to actual answers was sitting right next to Ruby.
Turning to the table again, Ruby continued working on the Mind Wraith.
Slowly, one by one every left the workshop. Argus and Neo were first, the two of them glancing back and trying their best to be subtle. Yang and Blake were soon after, the both of them eager to go home after having their minds exhausted by all the thinking these little bouts of information always inflicted on them all. When Glynda and Qrow left, they both gave small apologies to Oscar and Ruby both for their initial reactions. Ruby didn't know when exactly Jaune and Pyrrha left, but Weiss went with them to say goodbye.
It was surely dark out when Ruby was finished. Sighing gently, she turned the device over three times before nodding at a job well done and handing it to Oscar. "It'll work for you now, but this won't." She pointed to the cloak. "I'd rather destroy that if you'll let me."
Nodding, he was quick to shed the cloak and try to hand it to her. After she hesitated to touch it, he instead put it on the bench. "Thank you, Ruby." His smile was bright, and once again Ruby was reminded of a younger Argus.
"Yeah, yeah. Alright, let's go find you a room." Just as she stood however, a familiar scent entered the workshop.
"Not so fast." Weiss put her hands on her hips. "I can do that. Ruby, you have somewhere to be." Smiling gently at her, Weiss tilted her head to the doorway and Ruby too smiled. As always, she was correct.
Moving past her, Ruby gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and whispered a thank you before rushing through the doorway and down the hall. "Now... Where are you, Summer?" She would always know the question to that, and despite not wanting to intrude on Summer's life, Ruby knew that she had to make amends for earlier. Also... She was hopeful to see if tonight would be the night. "I wonder if I'll finally hear you call me 'mum'."