Disclaimer: See first chapter, but replace "Rooster Teeth" with "Viz Media".

Blake, Part 2

Zwei was running around the hardlight arena, running as fast as his little paws could take him. Ruby watched with not hidden enthusiasm as one of the lights on the top was broken, sending a shining beacon down right in front of the puppy. It was like a laser pointer for Zwei! Ruby thought it was brilliant and she needed to do something like that on purpose rather than on complete accident, if only so that way she could make a motion to it and go "Yeah, what do you think of that!"

It also had the side benefit of giving Ruby plenty of time to finish her homework from Signal. This was the last assignment for a week, before the graduating class went and took the Beacon assessments, or whatever Academy they wanted to go to, and then the next semester would start.

Yang had gone back with Dad to Patch, and fortunately they seemed to have 'patched' things up. Courtesy of Yang, with her dad being far too proud. Uncle Qrow had gone and vanished, apparently on another huntsman mission.

Jaune was still in Vale, but one of his sisters had decided to stop by after Yang had apparently forced him to call them and see how he was doing.

Which was how the rest of team PABY found out he had no records and had cheated his way into Beacon. Ruby already knew that, of course, she'd been told when she first made 'Mors', the reforged Crocea Mors. She hadn't been the one to name it, that had been Jaune.

Ruby had been on the phone with Yang for a good half hour after finding that out, as apparently 'need to know information about a teammate was something that she needed to know!'. Ruby disagreed, seeing as she had signed a disclaimer waiver, which really tore the wind out of Yang's lungs.

"Zwei, how long are you going to keep chasing that thing?" Ruby asked. She glanced over at the door and the clock right above it. It had been strategically placed, she noticed when she had first bought the place, but hadn't realized why until a few months ago.

Zwei ruffed at her, and kept chasing the light with his tongue hanging out. "I mean, this is easier than doing a run..." Ruby muttered. The last time she'd taken Zwei out on an actual run, she'd had to use her Semblance to keep up with the puppy. If he could get some energy out like this, she'd take it.

The door's bell jingled a bit. "Hi, welcome to Summer's Weapon Shop! Hi Blake," Ruby repeated instantly as the black haired girl wandered in. Her eyes were downcast, as if she hadn't gotten much sleep recently.

Ruby knew that something was wrong now, because her eyes were following the light and not the dog running around in a massive circle. "Everything okay?" she asked. Blake didn't have her weapons on her either, which was really bizarre. Ruby had never known the faunus to not have them on her.

And the omnipresent bow wasn't on top of her head, showing off the cat ears that danced upon it. "Blake...?" Ruby asked again.

"Huh? Oh, hi Ruby," she said distracted. She glanced around for a bit, not realizing where she was. Ruby tilted her head, but then darted back upstairs, small rose petals following in her wake. Another second later she came down, pushing a steaming hot cup of coffee into Blake's hands.

"I brewed an extra few cups on accident because I was so out of it this morning and I stayed up way too late last night trying to get better at that Ring game so next time Uncle Qrow comes by I can totally whoop his butt," Ruby explained.

The smell seemed to push Blake into realizing where she was. "Sorry. I'm just...deep in thought."

"I can tell. Come on, sit down," Ruby said, pointing to a small chair off on the side. "Zwei, you good to keep running or are you tired yet?" she asked the corgi, who was still running in circles. It seemed though as if he had tired of chasing after the light and was now chasing after his own tail.

Blake jumped two feet off to the side once she realized that Zwei was in fact right there. "You are out of it. Usually you realize Zwei's there much faster than that," Ruby said. Zwei gave a rough ruff. "Alright, I'll keep it on for you," Ruby answered as Zwei went back to chasing the light.

"Is that...good for him?" Blake asked as her own eyes instinctively followed the light he was chasing.

Ruby giggled. "I have no idea! He hasn't complained yet and the neighbors haven't complained about having to clean up rose petals in the mornings when he's taking me for a run."

"A real win win scenario huh? Good for you," Blake said, sitting down and slowly sipping at the coffee. "Is...this...how did you remember how I like it?"

"Blake that was only like three weeks ago."

"Oh, right," she said, her face turning slightly red. Ruby sat down in her own chair, one that she hardly ever used because as a shopkeeper it was normal to stand. And it was supposedly much more respectful on the customers.

Although it did hurt her feet after a while but her combat boots were meant for combat, not standing still for hours and hours.

"Alright, what's going on?" Ruby asked again. Blake stared down at the coffee for a moment, before she downed the entire thing in one go. "Blake, don't drown yourself in my coffee cup."

"I'm not...I'm...Nothing's going on, Ruby. Nothing."

"Right. And Zwei isn't chasing a light fixture right now, and you're not acting weird. Blake you don't even have your ribbon on! And you somehow managed to sleepwalk all the way here from Beacon!"

"Oh...right."

That was becoming a singularly unhelpful answer. "Blake I swear if you do not tell me what is going on right now-"

"I want to call my parents," Blake answered quietly. The wind blew out of Ruby's sails, and left her struggling to get words out. "I want to call them, and tell them everything, tell them I left the White Fang, why I did it, what all I did...and where I am now. But every time I think on it...I just can't. I can't do it."

Ruby glanced at her, the faunus obviously beating herself up over something that most would see as 'basic'. "Jaune did similar, and look at how that happened. Yang's mad at him, but only because she didn't think of it herself. Pyrrha already knew, and I can't blame him because I effectively did the same thing, only I was capable of combat."

Ruby said nothing, instead just letting her talk and vent. It was an uncommon situation, because most of the time she'd have to be the one to talk, and drag answers out of people one question at a time, but Blake was on a roll now.

"I can barely even remember their faces now. Do they remember me? Why would they, why wouldn't they? What should I do, what shouldn't I do..."

"I think, Blake...in this case it's better to just go and get it over with," Ruby tried to give some advice. It's what she would want to do, if she were in Blake's shoes, with her mom still around. But then again, she also wouldn't be in Blake's shoes because Summer definitely wouldn't let any of them be part of the White Fang.

Mostly. Maybe. Apart from that one time back then there were peaceful protests and Summer wanted to show Yang and Ruby what it was like at a peaceful demonstration. What was it that they had protested? Rising noodle costs or something? Ruby had been way too young to have nothing more than a small figment from back then.

The market had then had a sale on noodles for the next week because of it, from what she remembered. Or maybe they just had more noodles because of it.

"I can't, Ruby. What if they hate me? It's just a mistake. Sorry for bugging you with this-" Blake said, starting to get up. Ruby grabbed her hand and shoved her back into the seat.

Blake was probably not realizing just how strong Ruby actually was, because she acquiesced without giving so much of a hint of a fight. "I think you should call. Right now. No one here, no one to hear you."

"I don't think I can get service-"

"Blake I can do it from my scroll then."

"You don't have their number-"

"Yes I do," Ruby answered. "I took it down from your scroll I think...the second night? I don't know when, but I have their number. It's the main Menagerie line right?"

"How do you know that?" Blake asked, her eyes narrowed.

"Because I have to call that line if I want to order Menagerie specific weapon parts? Do you honestly expect Vale to keep around lengths of variable chain wire at exactly sixteenth inch diameters around here? I can't call Atlas for that!"

"I...hadn't realized you had to ship those parts-"

"I can make a lot of things Blake, but I can't make everything. Everything I can't make I have to buy. And I've gotten pretty good at finding places."

"Who do you talk to?"

"Over there? Uh...never met her. Radiata I think her name was? She works out of the shipping office in 'Weapons For All'. Don't know if you know the place-"

"Ruby there's only two places on the entire island to buy or make weapons, and the other is in control by the White Fang and would definitely not sell to a human. Even one like you."

Ruby nodded. "Oh, that makes sense. So yeah I have to call the main Menagerie line every time because all scroll calls go through the main CCT line, and for some reason Menagerie doesn't have a bunch of separate lines that connect directly to the CCT-"

"Menagerie doesn't have its own CCT. We have to piggy back off of Mistral, and that's if we don't have to hack Atlas'."

"Wait, you know how to hack!?" Ruby asked in sudden excitement. That was perfect, because she'd been meaning to call the security company to ask why the White Fang and Roman Torchwick could just suddenly disable her door lock like it was nothing!

Blake nodded, taken aback by the sudden excitement. "I mean, I've done it before..."

"Perfect! Can you hack into my door and see if you can't unlock it from the outside?"

Blake blinked for a moment, probably blindsided by the sudden request. "Sure, I can probably do that," she said, pulling out her own scroll. It took a few minutes, and once Blake has to ask for the exact network that the door was on, but that's information that anyone could eventually figure out. "And...hold on, I think I got it..." She said, pushing a button on her scroll. Ruby heard the door lock. A moment later it sounded the unlocking sound. "Got it ."

"Perfect! Now how would you stop that?"

"...add in a special password in the setup section. It tells you it's not supposed to be there, because then the support technicians can't unlock it manually on their side, but it's generally safer."

Ruby logged into it on her own scroll, setting it up with a new password. The chance of the techs needing to get in when she wasn't there was pretty small. And it'd be a lot safer!

"Glad I could help. See you around Ruby!" Blake said as she walked out, the door jingling as she did so.

Ruby watched her go. "And that didn't solve your own problem now did it...? You aren't going to make that call," Ruby said aloud. She glanced down to her own scroll, navigating to the Menagerie main line.

Zwei gave a slight pant as he finally fell asleep in the arena floor. Ruby rolled her eyes as she let him out, hearing the ringing on the other end.

Yang Vs. Ruby

"Blake's still mad at you, by the way," Yang said helpfully as she scooted around the store on Ruby's chair.

Ruby shrugged. "I knew she would be. But hey, this way it gets the bandaid ripped off. She'll forgive me later for it," she said.

Yang did a bit of a spin. "Yeah she will. She was all smiling about it when she said she'd 'come in here after dark and show you her really wicked ways'," Yang pronounced. "That may or may not have been a come on."

"Yang, we're not like that. You know that. I'm not like that."

"I know that," Yang said, bouncing from one side of the store to the other. "But on the other hand the random people that might overhear don't know that. And I'm so bored!" she shouted suddenly, doing more spins in the chair.

"Beacon semester starts in three days, and you're over here crying about how bored you are?" Ruby asked. "Why don't you, I don't know, help your partner?"

"With what, her revenge on you? She doesn't need help with that, I spotted a binder that said 'plans for Ruby's revenge'. It didn't have your handwriting on it, by the way," Yang clarified.

"The most I feel I have to worry about is a pie in the face."

"I'm honestly more surprised you gave her parents her current scroll number. That's not something you usually do, sis."

"They didn't know it and they wanted to know it. Besides, it wasn't as if they were complete strangers. I apparently talked to her mom a lot when I was calling for Menagerie supplies."

Yang stopped spinning. "Yeah, that's another thing we need to talk about. Where on Remnant are all of these suppliers of yours?"

"Three in Vale, one in Vacuo, one on Menagerie, two in Mistral, and one in Atlas," Ruby repeated instantly. "I've vetted them through a bunch of others, including Menagerie's one."

"...Did you grab any of their board games?"

"Yang, who do you think I am?" Ruby asked, putting one hand on her hip. "Of course I did, you know that."

"Sahweet, can we play?"

"I'm on the clock?"

"Grr, fine. How's your money situation looking?"

"Yang, I'm doing fine. Even without Velvet's constant weekly maintenance I have enough for the next three months, and that's with increased Vytal Festival spending."

She started spinning again. "You can't just give me generals. Come on, I want to hear specifics! Like that one time you asked me how my date went and you didn't let off for a week?"

"You're going to make yourself sick," Ruby pointed out. "And I hope that you make it to the bathroom before you do it. I'm not cleaning that up."

"Just answer the question."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Fine. I make on average thirty thousand lien per month, with average expenses of nearly fifteen to twenty thousand lien per month. All bills and rent come out to fifteen thousand per month. That makes my average income around ten thousand lien per month."

"Ruby that's not a lot-"

"Eh! You didn't let me finish. That's also been the same amount going on for the last six months, which means I have nearly sixty thousand lien in the bank. And because it's in the bank, it's insured. Three months upkeep."

"Sounds like you got most of it worked out. Seems a bit low though."

"Rent might go up in the next few months, so I haven't factored that in yet," Ruby said offhand. "Not looking forward to that."

Yang stopped spinning. "...Zwei's not in the bathroom is he?" she said, holding one hand on her stomach and one near her mouth. Ruby kicked open the bathroom door, ignoring the irritated bark from the dog within.

"He is but go on in anyways," Ruby said, not taking her eyes off Yang. "And I told you what would happen."

"Yeah, sure," Yang said as she ran on in. Ruby shut the door behind her, ignoring the sound of Yang getting sick.

She walked calmly around the counter, grabbing the chair that Yang had been spinning and scooting around on, bringing it back behind the counter.

Ruby wasn't expecting anyone to come in for a while yet. She'd had a steady stream of customers for a bit, seeing as the Beacon semester was about to start up, and that meant that the Beacon initiation had already taken place for this semester. She should be expecting to see a few new faces.

Yang came out of the bathroom, looking a lot better than she had going in. "Sorry Zwei..." she muttered. She got an irritated bark from the corgi, before he came out a moment later, scratching his hind paws at her, and darted up the stairs. "Is it me or has he gotten snarkier?" she asked.

"Nah, just you," Ruby answered instantly. "So, what have you learned?" she asked.

"To make sure Zwei's not in the bathroom when I need to go."

"...I mean, you're not wrong..." Ruby whispered off to the side. She glanced towards Crescent Rose, and she knew Yang was armed with Ember Celica. "Hey, I never asked, how did those improvements to Ember Celica go?" she asked.

"Oh, they're working good! It's nice having more options than just shotguns now, and I'm getting better at aiming."

"That's good. Want to test it?" Ruby asked, looking towards the center hardlight arena. "Maybe shake off the rust from living on Patch with Dad for so long?"

"Ha! Is that my sister challenging me to a spar!?" Yang said, looking much more animated now that a fight was certain. "In that case, oh yeah! I'm not letting this one go!"

Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose off the shelf, releasing it with a flourish. Before she needed to use two hands to hold it upright with the blade close to her, but now she was strong enough to wield it one handed...when walking. Not when fighting, still, but honestly, it was a scythe. What was anyone expecting? Also, using it one handed was way cooler.

"Oh ho, my sister's getting better!" Yang grinned as she activated Ember Celica, gauntlets coming out of what was once bracelets. Ruby studied them for a moment; Yang was using the shotgun side still. Ruby wanted someone to tell her that Yang hadn't been trying to fire .45 pistol shells out of 12 gauge shotgun shell slots. Someone, anyone.

She pulled out her scroll as she stepped out onto the hardlight arena floor, Yang doing the same. She was bouncing a bit in place, testing how hard the floor was and how much give it had. Ruby had tested it extensively herself.

A picture of her face lit up on the monitor, along with a large green bar that showed her current aura levels. Yang's appeared next to her. "To red?" Ruby asked.

"Oh yeah, come on!" Yang shouted. Ruby giggled as she input the right fight selections. A small red circle showed above both combatants, and Ruby walked over to the starting area. "Oh, it's not completely standard?"

"I had to get it fixed after it broke the last time, so it got a bit of an upgrade," Ruby admitted. "Stand in your spot and it'll start," she said.

Yang nodded and walked to the spot, her knees bent as she assumed a regular fight position. The red circle went off, suddenly green. The 'go' button had been hit.

Yang shot forward by using both gauntlets behind her, one arm ready for a punch. Ruby bent down low and tried to swipe at her with Crescent Rose, following up into a vertical slice.

Yang blocked one of the shots, and started to use her own Semblance on the other one. Her eyes lit up red and her attacks came out quicker and hitting much harder. Ruby darted around the arena, trying to get potshots when she could, and Yang would just chase her around using the gauntlet shots.

Small flower petals started to appear in midair as Ruby started using her Semblance to dodge for her. The shots of Ember Celica would have hit, if Ruby was actually there. Instead the mass of petals swirled around Yang, going faster and faster in a circle.

Yang's Semblance was still on, and the small cuts that hit against her aura pushed it to its extremes. One hit. Two hit. And then Yang lashed out her arm in a clothesline effect just as Ruby was going for hit number three.

She flung up to the ceiling and fired Crescent Rose upwards, sending her downwards. Yang grinned as she pressed a simple button on her gauntlets, switching them over to the pistol side.

Oh good, Ruby thought, someone had told her that Yang wasn't firing .45 shells out of 12 gauge slots.

Dozens of shots rang out as Yang aimed her hands, each one shooting towards Ruby. Petal Burst could only save her so many times, and each of the bullets tore that much more out of her aura. But she was still in the yellow, and using her downward momentum, Ruby swung Crescent Rose straight down.

Yang batted it to the side and pounded Ruby hard in the chest, sending her flying straight into the arena walls.

A loud alarm went off as the green circle turned red. "Uh...Ruby?" Yang asked. "What's going on?"

Ruby shook out her head. "I think we pressed a secondary activation trigger. I put one in during the upgrade. Basically it makes robots for us to fight."

"So you added in additional training modules...unsupervised."

"Uh...I mean, I guess?"

"Was Uncle Qrow around too much, you think?" Yang asked casually. She went next to the module, only to cast back by the arena hardlight walls. "And when does it end?" she asked.

Ruby glanced at her, and the small army of ever increasing drones within the hardlight arena. "Umm...when we win, I think."

The first drone had its head ripped off as Yang punched it hard, and she bent low and jabbed another one in the chest. "So in other words, when we kill these things?"

Ruby leapt into action, slicing one of the drones down the center that was coming at Yang from behind. "Yeah, I guess!" Crescent Rose with its wide sweeping arc did wonders here, sending dozens of drones do their ignominious demise after each swing.

Yang had to be much more mobile. Each punch took out one drone, but her range was so much shorter than Ruby's was. While Ruby could take out numbers, Yang was stronger, and they both knew it.

Their auras were supposedly still in the green, which Ruby knew couldn't have been the case. That single hit from Yang had almost knocked her out.

And as long as their auras were in the green, the drones kept coming, no matter how tired Yang and Ruby were. "Ruby! I thought you said this would end eventually!"

"There might have been some bugs!"

"I repeat, was Uncle Qrow around when you were making this thing!?" Yang snarked as she punched another one, knocking it into three. She switched her gauntlets back to shotgun mode, and batted away three or four at a time per shot.

"Hold on, I got an idea," Ruby said after another few minutes. She went to the back, closest to the pillars that held their scrolls. Yang went in front of her, defending her from any drone that made its way out front.

Rose petals came out of the air, slowly circulating around Ruby as she envisioned the exact path she'd take. She had never done this with her Semblance on purpose before, but that didn't mean much.

Then Yang turned around and fired two shots at their scrolls, and the hardlight generator gave a sorrowful weeping tone as the arena walls fell. And with it, so did the drones.

Ruby blinked in surprise, standing up after a moment. The extra petals fell to the ground, sad that they weren't used either. "Yang! I was about to do something cool!" she shouted.

"Well, I couldn't let my little sis top me now could I? Besides, we can just do it again!" Yang grinned, her eyes back to normal. Almost as if talking about it, there was a large spark from the generator. "Or...not until it's fixed again."

"Yang!"

Deliberately skipping over the drama. On purpose. Second of two updates. If you haven't read about Emerald and Mercury yet, go read last chapter!

Until Next Time!