Pulling Rank, a rwby fanfic

This is a little fic that I've made as a gift to Vendetta 543, since he's gifted me some fics on Ao3!

This fic was also inspired by a SovietWomble video. If you know, then you know.

There were things on Remnant that mattered more than anything.

For civilians, it was finding contentment and joy in the struggles of their lives.

For Faunus, it was to be seen as equals with humanity.

Even amongst the Grimm, there were things that mattered more than anything to them. Granted, all of them revolved around killing people and finding new, hilariously gruesome ways to kill people even more, but that's not relevant to the current conversation.

And amongst the Huntsmen, what mattered most to them-

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, I WENT DOWN TWO RANKS!"

-Was the ranking system.

Ruby - current rank: Guardian Elite - rubbed her ears as she sat in the top bunk of her bed. That was loud. Really loud. Yang never did anything by half, that was sure. "Yang, it's not a big deal-"

"Oh no, it's not a big deal, Ruby; it's a huge deal!" Yang - Current Rank: Guardian Novice - leapt up from the ground and onto the top bunk (dang, that was impressive) and thrust her scroll into her face. "Look at this! We killed all the Grimm and saved that town, and the ungrateful asses-"

"Language."

"-Got me downvoted to a lower rank! What the hell's up with that?!"

"It's probably because you spent most of the time during our mission running after a Goliath," Blake - current rank: Guardian Junior - didn't look up from her scroll as she searched for ways to up her rank. The size of the bags under her eyes matched the throngs of papers and research notes that threatened to snap her bed in two.

"It's a level two Grimm! Do you know how many ranks that would've shot me up?!"

"Many, if you hadn't had let it trample over a dozen buildings."

"Necessary sacrifices for the greater good!"

"As well as a dozen people."

"Do I need to repeat myself?!"

"Will you two shut up!?" Weiss - current rank: Guardian Junior Plus - screeched at them as she looked up from her desk filled with notes on the best ways to increase her ranking. "I'm in the middle of some very important research here!"

"Weiss," Ruby sent Weiss a tired glance, "How long have you been at that desk?"

Weiss blinked. Ruby swore that the bags under her eyes - just as big as Blake's - swayed with each movement.

"What day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"I haven't left this desk since Thursday."

Ruby let out a groan and rubbed the bridge between her eyes. Rankings this, rankings that, rankings rankings rankings. That was all everyone ever seemed to talk about. Back when the Huntsman system was being put together, someone had the genius thought to add a ranking system to try and highlight people's skills and prowess, as well as try to incentivise people into becoming Huntsmen as well.

And then, someone had the gloriously ingenious decision to add the ability for a Huntsman to rank down.

As much as she liked to think of herself as a nice person, Ruby so desperately wanted to throttle the idiot who came up with that idea.

Now the only thing on anyone's mind was how to up their ranking on a planet wide scoreboard. People listened to podcasts on how to up their place on the scoreboard. Junior Huntsmen spent their time in lessons compiling plans on the optimum ways on how to boost their rankings. Huntsmen literally fought each over missions that would give them the best possible ranking, and grown men and women rioted and threw tantrums whenever their ranking went down even just a smidge.

Who's deranged idea had this been?

(Up in Beacon's tower, Ozpin looked up from his desk in the middle of Qrow and Glynda beating the snot out of each other over one of them overtaking the other's ranking and groaned.)

"Yang, Weiss, Blake, stop. Please," Ruby would've sworn at them if she actually liked swearing. But she didn't, so she gave them her best 'disappointed parent' look, "There are more important things in the world than some dumb rank."

Not to be cliché, but one could hear a pin drop in the shocked silence that followed.

"Ruby, how can you say that?!" Weiss was the one to break the silence, an affronted look across her face.

"Ruby, don't be an idiot!" Yang's face was the same as Weiss', but with less bags under her eyes and more rage, "There's literally nothing more important in the world than getting a good ranking! What other reason is there to live!?"

"Er, fighting the Grimm?" Ruby raised a finger with each question, "Saving people? Protecting civilisation against extinction?" she threw her hands up in the air, "Isn't that the whole reason that we're here? Am I the only one who remembers this?"

"...Ruby, what the heck are you talking about?"

"Yes, please stop saying such ridiculous things."

Ruby screamed into her pillow.

"I must agree with Yang and Weiss," Blake said in between her sleep-deprived mutterings of 'High score' and 'Upping my ranking'. Gods above, it was just like when she was so obsessed with the White Fang, only worse. Ruby could still hear her maddening rants about how she was going to beat Adam Taurus all on her own to get the best rank possible in her head, "I think you're severely underestimating what a good rank can do for you."

Ruby shot her a deadpan expression, "What can it do, Blake? What practical benefit does a rank give you?"

"...It makes clear your competency."

"What, in between getting into fistfights with others over getting a high score on a mission like it's a video game? Or completely ignoring missions with less prominence or reward just because it won't up your ranking fast and far enough?"

"Exactly."

Ruby felt her eye twitch, "Blake, are you aware of what you just said?"

"That I understand the point of the ranking system perfectly, unlike you two, yes."

"...Me two?"

"Yeah, you-" Blake looked to the side, "-And the Animal God sitting right next to you."

Ruby looked to her side. No one was there. She then looked back to Blake, "Er-"

"What's that, Animal God? I should kill all my teammates to get a better ranking?" Blake's eyes widened like saucers underneath their black bags, "As you command, my lord."

"I- look, see! This is what I'm talking about!" Ruby jumped off her bed and gestured wildly at Blake as she deliriously muttered plots of murder to herself, "This! This is what this dumb ranking system is doing to us! Blake is literally going mad from trying to get a better rank! Does that not concern you at all?!"

"Ruby, don't go singling out Blake just because she's a Faunus," Weiss chided as she shook her head. Ruby swore that she could hear the bags under her eyes slapping against her face with each movement, "That's going to put you down a good few ranks."

"Wha- Weiss, why is that the one thing you're focusing on?!" Ruby gestured back to Blake as the latter drew pentagrams into her notebook, "She is literally trying to summon a demon to make a bargain to increase her ranking!"

"...Dammit, why didn't I think of that?" Yang muttered to herself.

"Yang, seriously, for the love of the gods!" Ruby suppressed the urge to pull her hair out, "I mean, is this whole ranking crud the only thing that you care about?! Is some dumb title all that matters to you?! What is it that makes this stupid rank so special!?"

"Well... you get a cool title."

"And?!"

"...You... get a cool title."

"Exactly!"

"Ruby, you don't exactly have any right to complain," Weiss threw out to her, "You're the highest ranking person in the room, and one of the highest ranks students in our year."

"Weiss," Ruby's lack of tone in her voice conveyed just how exhausted she was, "Do you know how many people have tried to fight me to increase their ranking?"

"Cardin, I swear to the gods, put your mace down and stop hitting me!"

"Are you kidding me, Rose?! If I defeat you now, then my ranks going to go up by ten places!"

"I'm sure Cardin's just an exception."

"He's not."

"Coco please! Stop at me!"

"Hell no, kid! I need to move up a rank, and you're looking like a good target to do so!"

"Maybe it's just people with the letter C in their name that are-"

"Weiss, I've been attacked twenty times today, and it's not even lunchtime."

Suddenly the door slammed open and some random red-dressed woman with glass weapons covered in fire in her hands marched in, "RUBY ROSE! I SHALL HAVE YOUR RANK OR I SHALL HAVE YOUR LIFE-"

Ruby threw a book hard enough at the woman to launch her out of the room before shutting the door on her. She then looked at her three teammates and gestured to the door.

"...That seems perfectly reasonable."

"I will give my blood for my rank."

"Yeah, I don't see what the problem is there," Yang shrugged, "Seems like a completely normal reaction."

"Yang, do you not remember mum's reaction when she didn't get the ranking she wanted?" Ruby remembered very well. She'd gone off on her own to defeat that Salem woman. When she got back, she saw that she'd only been put up one rank instead of the two that she wanted, and she burnt the house down in a rage, "Or how your original mum walked out on us because she wanted to go chasing better ranks in Mistral?"

"Again, completely normal reactions."

Ruby groaned again. It was just going in circles with this lot. The only thing that they cared about was levelling up their ranking as if the title actually meant something.

Which it didn't.

Ruby just gave up and stopped the conversation there. She needed to vent her frustrations out on something, and fast.

Luckily she wouldn't have to wait long. Combat class was up, and her team got to spar with Team JNPR, the only bastion of sanity left in this dang academy. Or rather, their team leader was.

Suffice to say, Ruby and Jaune's teammates reduced the training room to smouldering ruins.

And in the aftermath-

"HOW DID I GO DOWN ANOTHER FUCKING RANK!"

-Yang, Weiss, and Blake screamed as they went down another rank, with Pyrrha awkwardly smiling at them (poorly pretending that she wasn't relishing the constant challenges that the ranking-obsessed Hunters around her were providing), Nora balancing herself cheerfully on her hammer, and Ren looking away, embarrassed at how invested he'd been in securing his own rank.

Ruby shook her head at the destruction, and then looked down at Jaune, "Good match?"

Jaune - who'd been the first one to go down from a single punch to the gut and subsequently buried under a pile of rubble - groaned, winced in pain, and then nodded, "Y-Yep, good game."

Ruby smiled, and pulled him up from the rubble. Jaune was probably the only other person in the academy that didn't give a sod about their ranking. Heck, he'd never even opened up the app on his scroll that showed it.

Speaking of which...

Jaune's scroll vibrated, and there was the unmistakable noise of a notification telling him about a change in his rank.

"You going to answer that?" Ruby smiled.

Jaune shook his head, "Nah, not bothered by it. Probably just telling me that my rank's gone down again, like it probably always does."

Ruby decided to humour the notification for once. "C'mon, wouldn't hurt to check, would it?"

Jaune let out a puff of air, "I suppose one peek wouldn't hurt..."

So, he pulled out his scroll, opened the app, and-

"Oh, it's says here I've ranked up," Jaune commented, "It says here I'm now a... supreme master guardian..."

…

"Oh, no, distinguished supreme master guardian."

…

"Is that any good?"

…

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Ruby screamed as she threw her beloved Crescent Rose across the room, "NO! NOOOOOOO! NO, YOU DIDN'T FUCKING GET THAT FUCKING TITLE, FUCKING FUCK NO!"

"Is it- is it good?" Jaune tilted himself back to avoid the wrath of an angry reaper, "Is that any good-"

"You're better than most adult Huntsmen," Ren had turned monochrome from how much he was using his semblance to block his own emotions, "According to the ranking. You're better than the common Huntsman."

"...Oh," Jaune clearly had no idea how to process that.

"It's- it's fine, Jaune," Pyrrha said with a nervous stutter to her speech. Her eyes seemed to be twitching and her trademark smile suddenly seemed razor-sharp, "I'm sure it's just a bug in the system, than-"

"Oh, hey, look at this. It says I've been going up a rank every day."

All the metal around Pyrrha curled into balls.

"Lemme see- oh fuck, distinguished supreme master guardian! I thought you meant the regular master guardian!" Nora guffawed as she peered over Jaune's head to look at his scroll (and by peer over his head she meant piggyback ride him and cling to his back like a koala to get a look), "You're better than Miss Goodwitch!"

"I- Wha!?" was Jaune's dumbfounded response as Nora roared with laughter right into his ear.

"Holy shit, look at this! You're the same rank as Ozpin!" nearby, the three remaining members of Team RWBY froze with horror at Nora's thunderous proclamation, and then began to rock in place and cry their eyes.

"You are- yep, you're the same rank as Ozpin," Ren's entire body was twitching. Despite how much he was trying to block out his emotions, it was becoming clear that his rage was beginning to slip through, "And about to pass him as well from the looks of it."

Nearby, Pyrrha fainted.

Ruby, meanwhile, was busy screaming her lungs out.

Fuck the no swearing policy, this shit couldn't stand.

"I HAVE WORKED!" Ruby cried out like a banshee, "SO FUCKING HARD TO GET MY RANK! I HAVE BEEN TRAINING! FROM WHEN I COULD STAND UP! TO GET MY RANK! I'VE HAD TO ENDURE SO MUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT TO GET HERE! AND THIS! USELESS! MOTHERFUCKER! GET'S CARRIED! WITHOUT ANY EFFORT! TO FUCKING DISTINGUISHED SUPREME MASTER GUARDIAN!?"

Ruby screamed, slammed her head into a wall, and then repeated the process three more times.

"Er... well," Jaune shrugged, "B-Better... luck... next time...?"

…

"Ruby, where are you going?"

"Selling everything I own, and going to live as a hermit. I'm fucking done with this bullshit."

As it turned out, she cared more about the ranks than she let on.

Gamer rage brings out the worst in us.