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REAPER IN RED
Chapter 38
"I'm going to miss you girls so much!" Dad said as he gave me and Yang a squeeze worthy of a beowolf. "Don't forget to write and call or text whenever you are free. And can you let me know when you've arrived back at school? Did you forget anything? Yang, you have all your extra burn dust. And Ruby, you have your hairbrush packed?"
Yang tried to pull free, but to no avail. "Dad!" She whined as he mussed up her hair. I giggled at that. "We're huntresses in training, we know what to pack. Now come on and let us go. Not in front of our friends!"
"I've got my hairbrush in my backpack, dad." I said sweetly, playing up the innocent little sister and giving in to Tai's ginormous hug which he wouldn't break until he was good and ready. Well, I could break it, but why would I want to break a hug like this one? Especially one that was annoying Yang so much.
After a moment of even tighter squeezing, sending out child-like groans from my sister, he finally released. "Be good, both of you. Enjoy the rest of the year. Watch over each other." Tai looked up and over our heads to our two teammates. "You both too. Keep my Yangarang and Rubiroo safe. And out of trouble if you can."
He ended it with a wink.
"We will, sir. Tai." Weiss corrected. "Maybe not so much out of trouble. You know how Yang can be."
Tai let out a bellyful laugh. "I sure do. Enjoy the flight back to Beacon, girls!"
With one last squeeze of my shoulder, he stepped back and saw us off with a wave. It would be a nice and mostly calm flight back to Beacon.
I spun around, giving my teammates my biggest smile to date. "Who's ready to go back home and be awesome Team RWBY again?! Banzai!"
"Banzai!" Yang shouted, throwing up a fist.
"Banzai…" Weiss said softly, rolling her eyes with amusement.
Blake flinched.
"Oh, sorry, was I too loud?"
Blake's eyes darted up and me, and then back towards the ground. She nodded once. "Mhm. Yup. Banzai?"
"Banzai!" I replied, lowering my volume a tad. This was gonna be so much fun! Everything is going to be so much better and so much easier. And I had super awesome human-form magic powers!
Bing bang boom claiming a territory I… zoom? Vroom? Go too… m? I would need to work on that rhyme, but that's what a bullhead ride was for. We all got on, me sitting next to my sister this time, while Weiss and Blake sat next to each other in the row beside ours. I got my window seat. Blake got the other. She seemed to really, really want it. Almost begged Weiss to allow her to have it.
I couldn't blame her. Flying without actually needing to do anything was pretty cool. Humans were so smart!
It was a pretty relaxing flight. No turbulence, just smooth sailing. Flying? Just smooth flying from Patch to the landing pad at Beacon. I was only a little grumpy that I couldn't figure out what rhymed well with 'boom', but I still had plenty of time to get it perfect. I didn't think it was notebook worthy, but it was definitely something to keep in mind. This was going to be great.
We stepped off the bullhead and into a small, but steadily growing crowd of people, all grabbing their stuff and heading back to their dorms. Yang broke off from us to talk to some of her other friends, but promised to bring me back a cookie from the cafeteria on the way back. Weiss was going to drop her bags in our room and then head over to the library for a bit. Blake, well, she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but back in the dorm room.
As we stepped inside, she threw her stuff onto her bed and darted away.
I could kinda see why. It was pretty smelly. Nothing that a few spurts of that air fresher-upper spray that Weiss has to make it all better. Maybe I could do everyone a favour and see what was smelling up the place.
Locking the door -I was learning so much about privacy- and lowering the blinds, I flipped into my Reaper form. The dorm darkened considerably, my cloak taking on a reassuringly comforting weight over my shoulders and head. I pulled back my hood. My senses expanded. Lifespans wafted over me. Whichever green haired boy was outside the room needed to pay more attention to what he was eating. His lifespan wasn't as long as most others in this facility.
There was no life in this room. Not that I expected any. Well, aside from the occasional insect or minor vermin. And that was when I noticed it. Under the floorboards was the rotting corpse of… something small. It was small, no bigger than my hand, if that. It did have wings, or it once did. And it was-
I flipped back to my human form, letting out a loud screech. "Eww!"
What followed was laughter from outside. Gross. It was one thing to have a dead faery. That was fine. I could have just taken it out and moved it. But someone had covered the carcass in slime! It smelled so bad. That was mean. Just so really mean.
I swung open the door to see Russel and three others -his teammates- rolling on the floor in tears, laughing.
Opening my mouth to yell at them, Russel quickly leapt at me and held a hand overtop my lips. "Wait a sec," he mused.
"Good heavens!" That was Pyrrha's voice.
The four of them burst out into a second round of laughter at that. Pyrrha's shout was followed by about a dozen more, all bringing more laughter out of the boys. Their laughter was infectious and soon I was joining in on it.
It was so strange. Laughter was like a pulling on my vocal cords, along with a weird uneven intake of breath. Yet, as they continued to laugh, so too did I. And whenever we all began to calm down, taking in deeper and deeper and -much needed- deeper breaths of air, one of us would start chuckling and we'd descend into laughter again.
"What are we laughing at?" I tried to get out between giggles.
"That is exactly what I would like to know." All at once, our laughter stopped. Blinked out like a… well, like the darkness in a blink.
Professor Goodwitch stood over us, hands on her hips and an unpleasant scowl plastered on her face. I let out a slight giggle, which earned me a raised eyebrow from the woman.
"Sorry," I managed to squeak out.
"Team CRDL, you will be coming with me to explain your actions. And likely to fix whatever you… did." Her eyes flickered between them. They shuffled nervously under her gaze.
"Miss Rose, I will be speaking to you after about what you know. So you will not be joining any of the students on their last night in the city before the school semester starts. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am." I nodded.
"Good." She turned, not even bothering to check if Russel and his teammates were following her. They were. Even I wouldn't want to try and flee from Professor Goodwitch. Not when she had that face.
It was scary.
The rest of the day went pretty much normally. Professor Goodwitch asked me questions and I told her all about the faery in my room. And then I went back to my room and unpacked. Russel and his friends came in and cleaned out the faery for me. That was very nice of them. Yang came back for a bit to unpack, grab her scroll charger and tell me she'd meet me at the big announcement thing that Headmaster Ozpin was doing after dinner. She did bring me back a cookie. It was white chocolate chip and pumpernickel. I was quite pleased with her selection.
Weiss came back too, to unpack and spend some time relaxing in the room. She did mention the weird smell.
"It was a dead, slimy faery under the floor," I answered dutifully.
Weiss looked a little green. I didn't know humans could change to that colour! "Ruby, next time I ask something like that, please don't answer." Was her clipped response.
Blake didn't come back though. She must be having fun with… I wasn't actually sure who she would be hanging around with, but since she wasn't answering my scroll messages, she had to have been having loads of fun.
All too soon, I was standing around with the rest of the students, looking up at the stage where the headmaster was standing, waiting for us all to quiet down. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and smiled to see Yang's smirking grin.
"Sup."
"Hi Yang. Know what this is about?"
"Probably something with the Vytal Festival, it's starting soon."
Vytal festival… why was that name so familiar? Oh right! That was the big competition that a bunch of people wanted to participate in. "When's that happening again?"
Yang snorted. "In like a month, Rubes."
"Who's-"
"Welcome back all of you to another term at Beacon Academy," Headmaster Ozpin's voice boomed over all of us. We quieted down. "With the continuation of your academics, comes the continuation of a very much notable event. The Vytal Festival!"
There were some whispers and chatter among the students, but it seemed like I was one of the only few who hadn't realized what the meeting was going to be about.
"In a few days, Beacon Academy will become much livelier, as we become host to students and faculty from huntsman academies all around the world. Atlas Academy, Haven Academy and Shade Academy. It is paramount that everyone remains on their best behaviour. For even while this is a competition between academies, so too is it a building of bonds. Of bridging the gaps between our different cultures and experiences to learn from one another and grow into becoming the best huntsmen and huntresses we can be."
After a quick beat of silence, Headmaster Ozpin shifted gears.
"There will be a welcoming speech from myself as well as the headmasters or chief representatives from each school, to open the festival. Classes will still be ongoing, though this plaza, along with the central pavilion will be open to residents of Vale and tourists from abroad to partake in the festivities. Similarly, events will be taking place in Vale proper. We encourage you to enjoy yourselves during this time but be warned. Precautions will be in place including a curfew. That will be all."
Professor Goodwitch stepped up to replace the headmaster. "Skipping classes, skipping detentions, sneaking into the rooms of others and sneaking off campus after curfew will all be punished just as they had been. There will be no extra chances due to the Vytal Festival. Those of you who break the rules will see that your ability to even apply or compete in the preliminary rounds will be stripped. Pranks, such as the one pulled earlier today, will still be punished. More so, to students from other academies. Do not give Beacon a bad name. You are dismissed. Classes begin in the morning."
Everyone started talking at once as we were let out and back to our dorm rooms. I was flanked on both sides by Weiss and Yang, who were discussing their plans for the tournament.
I looked around. "Hey, anyone see Blake?"
Yang shook her head. "Last I saw her, she was grabbing food before Ozpin's announcement. Said she was going to be studying late or something?" She shrugged, "not really sure. Probably see her in the morning. You know about cats and taking some time alone."
"I don't," I responded.
"Yang! That's rude and racist," Weiss admonished. "But, I'm hoping she comes back soon. She has yet to unpack from our trip."
As we walked off towards our dorms and to the next few busy weeks, I only had one thought on my minds.
I wonder what the prank was?
A bit of a shorter one, at only 2,087 words, but watcha gonna do?
Lasereye27 - Thank you so much! And it feels great to still be going with this one.
Dragon Lord Draco - If strawberry cookies don't count, what about cookies and strawberry milk!
FN75 - secrets, secrets. Not everyone knows everything about everything, which is always nice. Stay tuned for the lore dumps!
Dragonqueen1993 - fingers crossed indeed!
firewyrm2 - That's understandable. Things will be happening more next chapter or so, so that should alleviate some of that. This was mainly a transition chapter, so things will be up again next time.
TM Calypso - *shrugs* I dunno?
Cun - It means everything! *gestures to pinboard covered in pictures and red string*
Kayden - Thank you so much! I am so happy that you enjoyed reading and that you want to continue reading.
Alucard45 - It's a healthy mix of Ruby is super young so was never taught things fully (she's only 115!) and she needs to truly experience some things to understand them. Can't say more, otherwise massively massive spoilers.
Revenge of the Red Pen - She's doing so well!