Disclaimer: See last chapter. OC's are...unfortunate, but they're here now. I couldn't find anybody in the RWBY canon to fill their slots that would be in Vale at this time, that wouldn't be Huntsman. So no Oscar.

Interviews

Ruby glanced through the door, hoping, desperately hoping, that the next few would be okay. She had a forging day in two days, and she'd really prefer to have this done long before then.

Zwei was at her side, being helpful for once as she could use him to judge everyone that came in. If he didn't judge them well, than she'd fail them instantly in her mind.

And this was so absolutely nerve wracking. This was the first time she'd done this, and she had no idea what she was doing. She'd gone onto the CCT internet so much over the last day and a half, trying to figure out the easiest and best way to do this.

A week ago, she'd taken out a small ad in some CCT space and put up a sign in the window. She was surprised that they hadn't been pulled actually, considering what she'd done at the dance. "Help Wanted, please inquire inside."

She'd gotten a few small comments, but it was mostly the ad space that had gotten more than few hits. It wasn't a lot, barely any, and if Ruby was expecting more than one person it fried her mind just how many people there were that 'a few hits' actually generated.

She was doing interviews for people that wanted to work for her. To work. For her. As a part time thing!

It terrified her. Most of these people were older than her, more knowledgeable than her, had more job experience than her, and the only thing she really had on them is that she could beat them in a spar. As if that was hard, most of these people were civilians.

The first two were...well, bad was a good way of putting it. They had commented idly that having Zwei right there next to her was unsanitary. And they had come together, which was altogether strange. No one on any website had said anything about that when it came to interviews.

One person, an old woman, had brought her husband who was much younger than she was, as a 'support spouse'. Like those animals that are trained to give support to people who are hurt? Like those, except a full on person doing it instead.

And those were in the first four. She'd done six so far. The other three weren't bad, but they gave off bad vibes. The first one was a young man, slightly older than her, who kept trying to take a peek down her blouse. The fifth was a nice woman, but...rather dumb. Ruby could understand mixing up .45's and .38's, but at least know what type of weapon fired them! She hadn't even known what a gun was!

The sixth had so far been the best. Of a bad lot. He was an older man, kind of soldiery, and he'd had a lot of green flags that to Ruby made her want to offer him a spot right away. Then he made a single off hand remark about faunus, specifically, "I wouldn't offer anything to them. They know where to find it."

Well. That had soured her opinion by a lot. She wasn't even asking faunus related questions, she was just asking basic ones!

The bell rang again, and Ruby sighed and straightened up her back. A young woman with purplish hair, obviously dyed as Ruby could see the small black marks at the roots of her hair, walked in. She was a bit nervous, and Ruby gave a smile. "Hi, Welcome to Summer's weapon shop. Shop's closed for interviews today, unless you're..." Ruby paused for a moment as she shuffled through some papers. She'd had an order to this, but then Zwei had mixed it all together when he demanded a boiled egg for breakfast. And made it.

There were still eggshells on the floor. "Lilac Marin," she introduced herself softly. There was a small something behind her, but Ruby never caught a good look at it before she motioned to the seat. The name sounded familiar. She had no weapon, and was only slightly older than Ruby, maybe only by a year or so.

Not a Beacon initiate, for certain. The girl lacked the musculature of someone who trained for a living. "That sounds right...oh, here we go," Ruby said, finally pulling it out. The introductory page had looked good, and she had only a bit of job experience, mostly in terms of coffee shops. "I'm sure you know the rules, but basically I'm going to ask you a few questions, answer as much as you like, but there's a hard time limit of twenty minutes, so think carefully but fast."

"Can I refuse to answer some questions?" Lilac asked. Ruby raised an eyebrow but nodded.

"Depends on the question. I'd prefer a reason, too, but I know everyone has some secrets. So then, Lilac, tell me about yourself."

Okay, good start Ruby, good start, now just stick the landing!

"Um...Sixteen, born and raised in Vale, went to school down at Vale Public, graduated with honors last year. Couldn't make the cut into Flare, Signal, or Pharos, and currently have an accounting degree lined up once I pass all of my classes," Lilac answered.

Ruby looked down, that was a plus one. And someone with a math degree, finally! She was good at numbers, but she really needed help!

"Okay. This is a customer service facing job. I've encountered everything from snippy people to outright racists. This is a weapon shop though, and that means most people that come in here are Huntsmen or Huntresses. Are you okay in that kind of environment?"

Score one for Ruby, that was near flawless!

"Shouldn't be a problem. I've worked at other shops before, and never got any complaints," Lilac answered. Huh, she had violet eyes. Then again, Ruby couldn't say, she had silver ones. Her hair was also fairly short, kind of like a crop top.

Also Ruby would be checking that statement, and wrote down a quick note reminding her to do so. "Name one time that you've had a stressful situation, and what you did about it?" Ruby asked.

Ruby's answer would have been 'every day, this, and what do you see me doing?'

"I had a customer once who ordered the wrong thing, blamed it on me, and then started yelling and screaming about 'stupid nameless companies' until I remade her order."

"So you acquiesced?"

"No, I charged her twice."

Ruby smirked, shared by Lilac. Oh, how Ruby wished that she could do that. But no, giving in would have been a valid answer too. And these are mostly Hunters. Most of them were polite to her.

"Have you ever worked in a blacksmith's shop, or a forge?" Ruby asked. Lilac shook her head. "Wasn't expecting otherwise, but I needed to ask. Are you good with dogs?" Ruby asked, looking at Zwei.

The corgi raised his head and let out a playful little 'ruff'. "I'm not afraid of them, if that's what you mean. He's cute."

"You can pet him if you'd like," Ruby said. Instantly Lilac reached over and palmed his head for a bit, the corgi going into cute adorable overload mode. Well, he trusted her. That was like a plus five.

"Are you comfortable working by yourself for small periods of time?"

Depending on how long contract negotiations took. Zwei was a dependable cashier, but...well, not the most helpful of employees. At least he was cheap to pay, in comparison to an actual employee. Lilac nodded, "I had to open sometimes, and be by myself for several hours. I also had to close by myself a few times."

Well, that helped that. "Do you know anything about weapons or ammunition? If I tell you this is a .45 caliber, does that mean anything to you?" Ruby asked, pointing down to a small bullet on the counter. She had only a few questions left.

"Um, generally fires out of a pistol or a small rifle. Small stopping power, unless hit in a vital area," Lilac said, looking more and more unsure as time went on.

That was allowed. After all, she at least knew that it fired from a gun. That alone spoke so much better. Ruby asked a few other questions, mostly just various scenarios, which Lilac answered in a way that showed she was slowly becoming more used to Ruby's brusque way of speaking.

It also didn't help that Lilac was the first candidate who actually had an idea of what she was doing. The thought made Ruby soar, but she still had to check out the two references that she'd put down. One was an old manager from the coffee shop, which said a lot about how she'd left, and the other one was from...huh. A teacher at Vale University. Well then.

It wasn't until Lilac was leaving that Ruby caught what made her seem a bit different. Coming out from her back, in the same place that Sun had his tail, was a long tail in much the same way. Not a monkey's tail though...a cat's tail.

Huh. And she liked Zwei, too. That was interesting. She'd thought it was a cat faunus thing, although really she shouldn't have been surprised. Kali and Ghira had both adored Zwei, and they were Blake's parents. Not liking Zwei was just a Blake thing, apparently.

Ruby tallied up the last few points, and took a deep breath. Lilac was, in fact, the first one with a positive number of points. That she was a faunus had no factor in Ruby's thoughts.

"Alright, old manager first, let's go," Ruby said, psyching herself up as she dialed the number. Ha, and Zwei didn't even have to help her this time! She was getting better at this whole 'being social' thing, especially when she wasn't causing a complete disaster to fall all around Beacon!

"Leo's Coffee Supply," A bored voice said from the other side. "Is this for an order?"

"Hi, no, I'm actually hoping to speak to the manager, Clarence?" Ruby asked, hoping her voice was polite enough. The voice went on hold and immediately a gruff voice answered.

"Clarence."

Well, he was happy sounding. "Hi, I'm Ruby Rose, I'm with-"

"Summer's Weapon Shop, yeah we know. If this isn't an order kid, I can't tell you anything."

"Wait, you know me?"

"Kid, everyone in Vale knows who you are. Helping Ghira Belladonna take down that Atlas Paladin mech, disrupting the White Fang circus around here a few months back...kid, you have a name."

"Oh. Uh...right, employee check!"

"You never worked here."

"No, I know that, I just..." Ruby forced herself to breathe deep and calm herself. "I'm looking for information on Lilac Marin. She said she worked there."

"Oh, her. Yeah, good kid. Had to let her go because of shit from the top, but honestly she's an employee I wouldn't mind having around again. She was always good to come in when shit got tough. That much of a glowing recommendation for you?"

"Yes, actually! She came in for an interview a few minutes ago and you're one of her references."

"Huh, poor kid never told me that. Then again, I told her she could but security chucked her out before I got confirmation."

"What kind of stuff came down from on top?"

"You mean why'd I have to let her go? Because some old bitch, Mrs. Dawnbelle or something like that complained that she was putting her tail in the coffee. Obviously, that makes no sense, but the top brass heaved and hoed and apparently she's a top donor or something, because we had to let her go afterwards."

"Mrs. Dawnful?"

"That mighta been her name. I have her face somewhere around here. Look kid, it's nice to chat and all but I got work to do. If you need a summary, you should get her while you have the chance."

"Thanks Clarence," Ruby sighed out as the scroll abruptly cut. "Not exactly the nicest of people, was he?" she asked. Zwei gave a small ruff, and splayed out his legs in front of the counter. Ruby rolled her eyes and pat his belly, exactly as the corgi demanded.

First Day

Ruby watched, overlooking her two new employees like some kind of egomaniacal micromanager who needed to check literally everything her employees ever did.

Despite the fact that this was only their first day on the job, and in fact were doing a heck of a lot better than she'd ever done on her first day. That first day with Velvet...that seemed like so long ago now. And yet...here she was, training her own employees.

And that thought made her wince at the same time. She had crunched the numbers more than enough times, enough times that even Dad had gone 'Enough, Ruby, you have enough'. And he was about as financially responsible as Qrow was responsible in a brewery. With free beer and whiskey.

And wasn't that a terrifying thought that she learned all that in under a year? But she had a year and a few months before Beacon started, and Ozpin had already essentially promised her a position. And based on how Lilac's old manager had treated her, she'd already gotten a small name for herself.

'Small'. She knew that it was a lot larger than that, but the thought scared her so she got rid of it faster than she could blink. In her Semblance. She was apparently some kind of local legend now.

One of the policemen or policewomen had been recording their entire fight against the stolen Atlas Paladin mech, and had seen her shear one of its arms in half, and attempt to secure enough time for Beacon to show up, even if it was just her sister.

"Is that right, Ruby?" Jasper asked. The sudden voice cut through all introspection, and she had to try hard to not jump three feet in the air and scream in panic. Luckily, Zwei did it for her, jumping a foot in the air and letting out an absolutely adorable 'yuff!'.

Jasper was her other new employee. Lilac was working the front, doing basic point of sale stuff, and it was the middle of the rush. Not that there was much of a rush in a weapon's shop. He was human with silver hair, and yet was fairly young. Tall and muscular, he was actually the blacksmith's son, but he'd gotten the job legitimately. He knew his weapons, not as well as Ruby did, but he could definitely be up there in terms of skill soon enough.

Lilac on the other hand wasn't nearly as good at the 'weapons' part of the job, but she was an amazing saleswoman. She never uncharged anyone, instead calmly pointing them to extra products that Ruby had that she'd never pointed out to anyone before and almost never sold.

Apparently when a shopkeeper forgets her own items, so too do most of the customers. So that was a thing she learned. Already she sold more extra scroll batteries today than she had in the last four months combined.

"Ruby? Stop staring out into space," Jasper's deep voice said. He was raising an eyebrow now, holding a mechashift axe and rifle. .45 caliber, fired using 35 to 85 purity white or red dust, or gravity dust if anyone could find it. She hadn't had any in stock for a while.

"I'm not! Staring out into space I mean," she protested.

"Right. So how fast does this thing fire? My answer is one round every two seconds, and that's with an extra auto-fire mechanism," Jasper said, pointing out the small switch on the back.

"And I was saying that's an insane rate, the blast would kill someone's shoulder," the customer, a young boy who was probably from Pharos or Flare. Actually he was Ruby's age, truthfully.

She took a glance at it. "Fires two rounds every second at max capacity using a true autofire. I don't carry many of those in rifle sizes, you're better off going lower volume with higher dust amounts if you need to pack more punch. Four times as fast as Jasper said."

The customer blinked at her. "Holy shit that's fast for a rifle."

"But it's not?" Ruby asked. "Crescent Rose can fire as fast as I can pull the trigger, and that's a full sniper using .50 caliber. If you're worried about recoil, have your aura up when you fire. It'll take the damage from the recoil, and with it you might be able to do some neat tricks."

"Right, aura. I always forget that part," Jasper muttered.

"Your employees don't have their aura unlocked?" the customer asked. "Odd choice for a weaponsmith."

"It's their first day! I was getting around to it after a while, I just haven't gotten to it!" Ruby protested. It was times like this she wished she had listened to that voice in the back of her head that said to hide in the forest for two years culling the Grimm.

"Hey, I'm just saying..." the boy said, heading over to Lilac's counter. The purple haired girl was already helping ring up a few customers, and motioned for the boy to just wait in the newly forming line. She was definitely doing good with that POS system.

"Do you know how to unlock aura?" Jasper asked. "I asked my dad about it a few times and he just said that unlocking aura was dangerous."

"It can be. The Grimm are attracted to souls and emotions, and what is aura but power of the soul on the outside as protection? It attracts Grimm, and with it you're also likely to take longer to die...so you attract more Grimm."

"That's grim."

Ruby shot him a look. "Not a phrase to use around Hunters. Aura isn't actually needed in this job, and I was going to ask long before I actually unlock it."

He, fortunately, seemed to look withdraw himself a bit as he looked a bit sheepish. "Sorry. It's...my dad. Puns come to him."

"He's got nothing on my dad. Unfortunately," Ruby muttered. "Trust me, I know puns. Lilac! Any questions yet?" Ruby called out.

"None yet. Except that your customer base is really cool. Have we even seen anyone from Beacon, yet?" Lilac called back.

The bell rang. "Not yet," Ruby said as she watched as Velvet walked in for her weekly maintenance. "But we have now. Hi Velvet!"

"Hi Ruby. What's going on?" the rabbit faunus looked at the silver haired boy next to her, and the woman at the counter. "She seems to be in your spot."

"Oh, new employees! I hired them yesterday, and today's their first day. I figure now's a good time before I throw them into the fire that's going to be the shop for the Vytal Festival," Ruby explained.

"I see. I hope you don't mind if I see what they can do?" she asked with a smirk. Ruby shook her head.

"Nope, go for it! This is Jasper and that's Lilac. This is Velvet, she's a second, soon to be third year of Beacon. And that's Aneisadora," Ruby said, pointing to the small camera on the back of Velvet's back. It was in a small black pouch that was padded on all sides, and yet still had enough room to be able to take pictures through it. A carrying case that Ruby had designed and made, specifically for the tiny weapon.

"It's a camera," Lilac said. "How is that a weapon?" she asked.

Velvet smirked. "You want to see? Ruby, should we have a demonstration?"

"You know, I don't think we've ever sparred before," Ruby said as she jumped a bit in excitement. She bolted over to Crescent Rose on the wall, grabbing it and making it to the arena in the same moment that it took Velvet to walk to it from right next to it.

"It's just for the maintenance, I figure a bit of use right now won't hurt her," Velvet said as she pulled out the camera. Ruby smirked, and unleashed Crescent Rose as the arena walls went up.

"So that's what that does..." Jasper muttered. Lilac nodded her head. "I never knew..."

There was a bright flash as Velvet quickly took a few pictures of Crescent Rose just as Ruby bolted forward.

Instantly the hardlight dust was formed, and Ruby was battling another opponent...herself. Same skills, and same terrifying ability. The blades of the Roses met with a thrashing clang, and Ruby had to figure out how to dodge her own weapon.

Velvet was no slouch either, instantly getting used to Crescent Rose's unique weight distribution. She was never going to use any of the special tricks, but most people weren't ever going to get used to fighting themselves. Slashes and gun fires went every which way, mostly dodged or occasionally blocked. Small nicks appeared in the shaft.

Ruby smirked. That was how she'd win. Velvet was good with almost every weapon, but Ruby was its smith. She slammed the blade down, firing into the ground of the arena to send herself flying, before she fired against the top, flying herself downwards.

The curvature of the blade appeared near her, and immediately her Semblance kicked on, ducking over the blade and increasing her speed more, just as she landed. Momentum gained, she slashed once at Velvet.

Who blocked it with Coco's weapon, manipulated out of the hardlight dust. Ruby stared at it for just a second as Velvet let out a full round spray from Gunja. Which was about three hundred rounds in six seconds.

Ruby's aura wasn't quite to the yellow, but it was close. Each bullet had only done little, but it was enough that a few hundred of them was enough to dent her just as easily as one.

Then Aneisadora let out a small 'poof' as the third aperture failed completely, and the hardlight dust that made her weapon shattered onto the floor. "Oh," Velvet said, glancing down at it as Ruby came down from her blocking position.

The arena walls went down. Ruby stopped just as the alarm sounded. "That sucked," she complained instantly. "Why did the third aperture break? I thought I did that one last time, and it should have been good for a few hundred!"

"Second last time," Velvet said as she grabbed a dust crystal, knocked loose from Aneisadora. "And this thing was loose. I noticed it during yesterday's combat class, but I didn't think anything of it."

Both Jasper and Lilac were staring at her. "Our boss can kick our ass," Lilac muttered. "I've heard of a boss firing people, but never firing at people."

"Ha. Good one," Jasper said, holding out his fist. Lilac hit it gently with her own. "That's what a Beacon student can do? Is that why we need Huntsman? How are there any Grimm around if that's what people can do?"

"There's a lot of Grimm, and most of them are even stronger," Ruby answered. "Which is why we train as students. You're going to see a lot of that kind of thing in the next few days. Which is why, after I do a bit of work with Aneisadora, you're both going to learn how to shoot."

"Ooh, giving lessons now? Coco could probably use a bit of aiming assistance," Velvet said with a teasing smirk.

"I don't think she needs to aim," Ruby answered. "Just vaguely point and whatever is in the way dies."

"Yes. Yes she does," Velvet answered with a grin. "Do I still get my special rate even though we fought?"

"I don't charge for spars. Unless I do a lot of them in one day, which only happens whenever Dad's around," Ruby said.

"You mean like right now?" Jasper asked, pointing to the open door as the blond haired tall man came in.

Ruby rolled around. "Oh. Uh...hi Dad!"

Taiyang grinned as he held one box easy. "So what's this I hear about you hiring new people I haven't vetted?" he asked.

Lilac was gone the next second, behind the counter holding Zwei up as if he was a shield. Jasper, too, tried to duck behind one of the weapon racks.

Ruby grinned. Yeah, she was doing just fine these days. She'd make them into good weaponsmiths, even if it took a while. They had promise. Now all she had to do was make them fill it up.

Before anyone says anything, I have heard of someone bringing in an 'emotional support spouse' to their interview. I was not on that panel, but just hearing about it was weird.

Until Next Time!