Chapter 24 – Team RUBY

In which Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao-Long must work together to help their leader find herself once again.

Weiss Schnee was a creature of habit. If one could observe a single day in her routine life, they would be aware of her daily schedule down to the letter. It was because of this ordinary regularity that she could operate with such efficiency.

Thus, Blake Belladonna knew that from the moment the bathroom door closed, she would have precisely sixteen plus or minus two minutes from when it would next open. That was the time it took Weiss to shower, brush her teeth, and apply whatever few cosmetics she chose to use that day based on the class. Blake wasn't a stalker, so she hadn't determined whether today was a full make-up day or just some minor stuff around Weiss' eyes and on her lips. Rather, she hadn't determined that yet.

"Ruby. Yang. We need to talk."

The two of them were still under the impression that Weiss and Blake's relationship was in a rocky state, as neither were aware of their early morning reconciliation just a few hours ago. Both were walking on eggshells, neither wishing to get involved in the intricacies of teenage romance. It was fortunate, then, that what Blake needed their help with wasn't related to romance or relationships.

"What's up, kit kat?" asked the blonde sister.

Blake was tempted to call out Yang for her use of racially charged language – and yes, even if she didn't see it as racist, Blake did – but they lacked the time. Thirteen to seventeen minutes remained, and lectures on how calling Faunus animals wasn't appropriate didn't fit on the schedule.

"It's about Weiss. I think she's having problems."

"P-Problems?" Ruby repeated.

"Not problems with me. Problems with self-confidence in her role as team leader."

In a perfect world, Blake wouldn't have to bring up Weiss' private business, but she had a feeling that the only way Ruby and Yang would get off their asses would be if they realized the severity of the situation they had caused.

The situation we caused. I'm at fault here just as much as the sisters.

Blake wanted so desperately to still despise her partner as she had for the past few weeks. She did carry a great deal of hate in her heart towards the belligerent, brash human, and it was a stretch to suggest that she would ever possible even enjoy her company.

But Yang had lost her temper and taken it out on Weiss, hurting her in the process.

So had Blake.

Ruby had fucked up when she met Weiss, grabbing Weiss' wings. Weiss had unleashed her fury at Ruby in the form of a verbal torrent of harsh words. Everyone on Team RWBY had made their mistakes, but for some damn reason, all of them had ultimately only ended up hurting one person.

Even Weiss' own big fuck-up, yelling at Ruby, probably makes her feel more guilty than Ruby feels upset about it.

Ruby and Yang were still waiting for Blake to elaborate on her vague words, so she did. "Weiss has been doing a lot for us. Ruby, you know how much time and energy she's put into helping you catch up."

The young huntress nodded. "She's been really great. If she's having problems, I want to help."

Blake turned to Yang. "And as for you…"

Yang held up her hands. "I will, I will. I know you guys may think I despise our leader, but I don't. Even if we had a lot of trouble, it means more to me than you guys can know that she even sat down at the same table as me and agreed to talk it out. Right or wrong, she chose to be my leader when I probably wouldn't have done the same in her shoes."

Even though Ruby was oblivious to the truth, Blake knew that Yang still thought she was justified in attacking Weiss as she had. They may have figured out that she wouldn't do it again, but they had yet to drill through her thick skull and impart the lesson onto her.

But that's something for Weiss to do as leader.

"And therein lies the problem," Blake said, addressing her own thought and Yang's last words. "Weiss has been shouldering all of our burdens, but there's no one looking out for her. We all have a guardian angel as huntresses-in-training, but she's so busy being that for us that she isn't taking care of herself. And the stress is getting to her."

Ruby leaned over to the side slightly and glimpsed the bathroom door. "Is it? She seemed happy this morning."

"Yeah," Blake snorted, "because she's literally lost her mind and asked Ozpin to make someone else the leader."

Ruby was nearly brought to tears by the news and began to pepper Blake with questions for details, but Yang was merely stunned into silence.

Weiss…is quitting?

This had never been what she'd wanted.

Weiss had been a bitch at the start. She had gone out of her way to antagonize Ruby on the first day of school. She'd outright tried to steal their initiation away from them and get them kicked out of Beacon. And then, to top it all, she'd revealed her true colors as a spiteful, sour, bitter little lemon of a woman that did everything but tell Ruby that she wanted her to get out of Beacon.

But as time progressed, Yang had gradually been forced to reconcile some uncomfortable truths of the situation. Weiss hadn't sought out Ruby on the first day; according to her little sister's accounts, Weiss had actually tried to let things go multiple times. Ruby could and often had been a bit too klutzy for her own good, and Yang had seen her mishandle Dust on several different occasions. Never bullets for Crescent Rose or Ember Celica, but when she was handling a birthday gift for Qrow, she'd lit her own socks on fire.

And that was the only time she handed Dust outside of her usual. Literally a 100% failure rate for her, including Weiss' cases.

In initiation, Weiss had screwed the little team she and her sister had made with Ren and Nora. That was unforgivable…until Dad had asked if Yang had been planning to fight her way through Weiss' team to the relics only to give it back to the other team. Yang had been incensed by that comment, pointing out (rightfully so) that Weiss had cheated. Qrow had disabused her of that notion rather quickly, asking her if she expected huntresses to lose their objectives and die in the real world because they didn't want to cheat against Grimm.

Weiss hadn't cheated, and she hadn't ruined their initiation. She'd actually saved them at great risk to herself. And…And…

No matter how much I try to ignore it, I was going to punch her with Celica after breaking her aura. I was going to kill her because I was upset.

But no one, not Dad and not Qrow and not even Ruby herself could convince her that she was wrong to defend her little sister after Weiss had terrorized her. Perhaps it wasn't beneficial for Ruby to have her overprotective hulking sister looming over her and warding off newcomers before Ruby could befriend them, but everyone and their aunts seemed obsessed with Weiss being some tragic victim who'd done nothing to deserve it.

Yang knew she was right. She would never be made to doubt herself when defending the innocent, no matter what.

But it was over. Weiss had apologized, and Ruby was friends with her. The issue was long past, and even though everyone seemed hellbent on bringing it up to score points against Yang as frequently as they could, Yang was willing to forgive Weiss and move on.

As much as Yang tried to ignore it, Weiss had pulled out all the stops for her and Ruby. She clearly saw herself as a victim, but she'd bent over backwards to keep Yang in Beacon even after Goodwitch had lost her mind and tried to banish her to the shadow realm over a spar. Ruby had a new friend, perhaps even a best friend, and the tutoring to catch her up to speed was something Yang regretted not thinking of on her own.

What kicked her opinion of Weiss up a notch or two was when she'd confronted her at the base of the CCT. Yang had no idea what business Weiss had with Ozpin, and she didn't care to find out. But when Weiss had come down, clearly in a foul mood, Yang had been ready for rejection and was halfway towards moving on and thinking of ways to convince Ruby to drop this whole 'quitting Beacon' business.

But Weiss had changed her mind. Weiss, who still saw herself as the victim, had agreed to try and mend their relationship. And it wasn't even out of loyalty to Ruby – she'd turned her back on Yang when the Ruby card was played. It was because of Yang.

That was the part Yang couldn't understand. Only one of them could be right, but in their own heads, both girls thought they were the ones with the moral high ground. If Weiss had been the one who'd needed Yang's approval, it never would have been given. But Weiss, for whatever reason had been going through her head, had decided to be the leader to someone who she believed was wrong.

Yang owed her one for that.

"How can we help?" she asked Blake.

Ruby felt sick to her stomach.

Weiss, perfect awesome bestie Weiss who'd given Ruby the tough love she needed to grow and also the real love she liked getting from a friend, was in trouble, and it wasn't all that hard to figure out who was at fault for putting the idea into her head.

I was the one who talked about quitting Beacon. I said that if I removed the problem, everyone else would be fine. But she thought…and now she's…

Suffice it to say, Ruby was willing to do anything to make this right.

This sucks. This really sucks. I'm going to have to remember never to quit the team, because if this is how it makes the others feel, then I never want to do that to my friends. I'll just get all F's in all my classes and be sad but with my buddies.

Well, it wasn't quite the same. Weiss wasn't quitting Beacon, but she was just stepping down as leader. Ruby didn't particularly want a new leader, so she was going to have to do everything to…

"Wait," Ruby said. "If being leader is stressing Weiss…should we even…I mean, I'm not saying we ask her to quit, but if she's unhappy, isn't this her call to make?"

"I thought of the same thing," Blake said. "I wasn't exactly sleeping when I came back in the room. Trust me, Weiss wanted to be leader; she's just had such a rough time of it recently because we've all been thinking of ourselves that she's lost her love for it. The issue is that Weiss thinks she's at fault for all of our problems, and she somehow believes that just because they haven't been fixed, she isn't a good enough leader for us."

"So we reassure her that that's not true," said Yang. "Simple as pie."

"Yang, we can't just say a problem is fixed and move on. We need to actually fix it." Blake sucked in a breath. "Starting with the fact that you and Weiss haven't really made up."

Ruby knew she wasn't supposed to, but she cringed. Weiss and Yang had looked so happy when she'd pretended to buy their story of fixing everything wrong with their ruined relationship in a single night, and she hadn't had the heart to burst their bubbles.

"I…I…" Yang began to stammer, no doubt thinking up some retort to Blake's correct accusation. "R-Ruby, it's –"

"It's okay, sis," Ruby said, patting Yang's arm. "I already knew. And as for me quitting Beacon, I think I just changed my mind."

Blake grimaced. "Again, it's not that we need to fix the symptom. We need to cure the illness. You're not enjoying classes, or you're struggling, or whatever it is. We fix that, not just recant your threat to quit it all. You can't fake something like this – I mean, you see how that went with Yang. The sooner you can lift this burden from Weiss' shoulders, the better. I'm not asking you to open up the skies and summon down a miracle – if you did, Weiss would probably be upset that you resolved it without her. Just get it under control."

That sounded tough and rather complicated, but if it was for Weiss…

"I'll do it."

"On the more immediate note, we need to get Weiss to drop this whole 'new leader' business.' She isn't going to play ball if she thinks Ozpin is going to be replacing her as soon as he gets the memo. We need something to reignite her love for being in charge of the team. It's got to be something where she can lead us to a victory that we're all proud of."

"I'm guessing you have something in mind, oh wise and meticulous deputy Faunus overlord," Yang joked.

"I do. I think we should investigate Professor Torchwick."

Blake couldn't help but notice Ruby's face contort into a scowl at her suggestion. She was aware of the young girl's kiddie crush on Torchwick, and it was going to take some fine argumentation to convince her.

"Ruby, I know you –"

"You're right," Ruby breathed. "He's not the nice guy everyone thinks he is. Let's do it."

Blake blinked in surprise. She'd been expecting that to be more of an ordeal.

Not that I'm complaining about how easy it was. If Ruby's outgrown her puppy love for the teacher, it's much better for everyone.

"I propose that we request Team RWBY dig up the dirt on him, and we have Weiss coordinate our efforts. I know that she and I have access to some rather powerful people in the Atlesian political and financial world, and we can leverage those connections to obtain any records on Torchwick's misdeeds."

Yang nodded. "I know a few people on the shadier side of town. They might –"

The door to the bathroom opened, and out came Weiss, running her brush through her hair. Yang instantly shut her trap, which probably was a poor choice, since abruptly stopping their conversation was far more suspect than just switching topics.

But Weiss didn't even seem to notice.

Perhaps she's got other matters on her mind.

Well, no time like the present.

"Weiss," Blake said. "We were hoping to have a talk with you."

Weiss' eyes rose up to Blake's, and she glanced down to see that Ruby and Yang were staring. Neither girl even knew the meaning of the word subtlety, apparently.

"I take it this is about me stepping down as the leader of Team RWBY," Weiss said.

"H-How did you know?" asked Yang.

"What else could it be? You three congregated together after having a private conversation to which I could not be privy less than three hours after I broke the news to Blake…I honestly might feel insulted if you were just informing me that you wanted to skip breakfast."

"May I?" Blake asked.

Weiss nodded and received a hand on her shoulder for it.

"Weiss, we have something we'd like to ask of you."

"I won't change my mind, Blake. It's my decision, and it's the right one. I'm unfit to lead, and all four of us would be better off if –"

Ruby tackled Weiss off her feet in an explosion of rose petals. Both girls fell to the floor in a heap with such force that Blake instinctively raised her aura at the sheer shock of it.

"I give up! Weiss, please don't leave!"

"I'm not leaving, you dolt! Unhand me at once."

"No! I won't let go until you agree to be our leader again!"

"Ruby, I said no to Blake. What makes you think you can convince me otherwise?"

"My grip strength!"

Ruby tightened down on her captive heiress like a limpet Faunus, constricting Weiss so much that a civilian without aura would probably have asphyxiated at that point. But Weiss was a huntress, and a rather good one at that, so Ruby's threat wasn't enough to change her mind.

Weiss looked up at Blake. "Blake, can you help get her off of me?"

Blake considered it.

"I will, but I think I'd like for you to hear our request before I agree to help get Ruby off."

"Phrasing," coughed Yang.

"…before I extract the Ruby from your person," Blake amended.

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "I don't appreciate being threatened."

"It's not a threat if Ruby's already woven herself into your school uniform, Schnee," Blake quipped.

As much as she disliked the idea of physically forcing Weiss to hear her out, Blake wasn't going to throw away a distinct advantage when she needed Weiss to listen. Plus, Ruby seemed to be the one person who got a free pass for accidentally touching Weiss without consent.

Weiss struggled within her humanoid bonds a few times, but Ruby didn't budge. Sighing, she gave up.

"Very well, then. You have a proposal for me?"

Blake cleared her throat. "We want you to lead us…"

"Blake…"

"…in an investigation of Professor Roman Torchwick's fraudulent behavior."

Weiss clearly had been expecting something else, for the retort died on her lips before it ever exited her vocal chords.

"Torchwick?"

"He's a dick!" Ruby concurred from around Weiss. "We gotta stop him!"

"Ruby, can you let go of me?" Weiss wiggled around slightly. "I'm losing circulation in my wrists. I promise to listen, but this is quite uncomfortable."

The speedy partner of Weiss' did as she was asked, but not before looking to Blake and Yang for a quick confirmation in the form of a nod.

"What exactly are you asking for, ladies?" Weiss asked. "Is this some sort of final bonanza for Team RWBY? A farewell party?"

"Farewell implies you're leaving," Yang astutely pointed out. Blake appreciated that she knew better than to involve herself more than tangentially; teammate of Weiss' thought she was, a friend she was not.

"I'm gonna be honest with you, Weiss. We don't want some rando as our leader, and we're all hoping this will convince you that you're the only one for us." Blake shrugged her shoulders. "We know you care about stopping our fake teacher more than any of us…"

Although perhaps not more than Ruby, who'd done a sudden 180 on her opinions of Torchwick. Blake was beginning to wonder if he might've had something to do with her seemingly out of left field choice to threaten withdrawing from Beacon.

"…and if you don't lead us, Yang will," Ruby declared. "She'll march me down to the criminal side of Vale to meet with her underworld contacts that she knows on the down low, and I'll probably be approached by a drug dealer who'll force me to sign a contract to become a hooker. And I'll contract and STD and die."

"Oi! Don't make it sound like I'm part of a gang!" Yang groused. She shook her head at her sister's antics, then faced Weiss. "To translate: we all want you to be our leader, and we're hoping that this will help you realize that you're the one for us. We…We also talked it out, and we're going to try to be better teammates."

Weiss laughed aloud at that. "Nonsense. The fault for our team's strife lies with me and me alone."

"No, it doesn't," Blake stated. "Weiss, blaming yourself for things beyond your control helps no one."

"It's not beyond my control. I had the choice of yelling at Ruby, and I took it." Weiss gestured to herself. "My actions. My fault."

Ruby knew that this was her moment. Blake had been the one to propose it to Weiss, and Yang had been the one to explain it, leaving the job of convincing her to Ruby.

"Weiss, if you hadn't yelled at me, I think I would've turned out a rotten egg," Ruby said. "I was acting like a little spoilt baby, and I had to be scared out of it to grow."

"But I spoke to you in anger." Weiss frowned that little frown she did where it looked like she wasn't upset with whatever was in front of her but confused that the entire world didn't automatically subscribe to what she saw as her flawless logic. "It was unbecoming of a leader."

Ruby tried a different approach. "Alright…imagine this. Suppose you learned that Jaune had yelled at Pyrrha over, I dunno, her trying to promote her merch during class, and suppose he shouted at her and told her to stop and said she was being a jerk. Imagine he got as upset as you did with me."

Weiss' face scrunched up. "She shouldn't be advertising in class, for sure, but that wouldn't –"

"Exactly." Ruby nodded. "It wouldn't. But do you think you would condemn Jaune? Would you ask him to step down and quit so that someone else can take over?"

"Ruby, I've failed at more than just one thing. And I need to hold myself to higher standards." Weiss straightened her slightly ruffled uniform, removing some of the creases and bunched-up folds from where Ruby had clung to her. "As both a future CEO and a proud Faunus woman."

It was too much. Ruby started to feel a tiny bit of ire build up within her. "So what, you're going to just quit after one thing goes wrong?"

"I'm not quitting. I'm admitting that I'm not properly suited for this role."

"Yeah. Quitting."

Had this been a cartoon, Ruby would've had her veins on her forehead go all poppy at this point, and perhaps some smoke pour out of her ears. Weiss was always so sure she was right, but she was too obstinate about the one thing that mattered right now – herself.

"Ruby, it's a leader's responsibility to recuse himself or herself when –"

The formal talk was just too much. Ruby lost it.

"Ugh, this is just like when you thought you couldn't show emotions, Weiss!" She threw her hands up in the air and began to pace back and forth in the room, her voice rising with each step. "Back then, you thought you had to be perfect too. Well, newsflash – you don't! We don't want perfect! We don't need perfect! We need you, Weiss, you! If you were already a perfect leader, I wouldn't think you even needed to come to school. You made a mistake, but we've all forgiven you, and it's time to stop obsessing over one fault and just move on. We need you, Weiss. I…I need you. If we get another leader, are they going to yell at me when I need to be yelled at, or tutor me when I'm struggling, or hold me when Roman laughs at my confession and walk me back to our room and tuck me in? Are they going to help Yang unplug her face from her butthole when she thinks it's okay to beat people up? Are they going to make out with Blake? That was all you, Weiss. You've been a good leader. You are a good leader. So…So stop it with this stupid quitting thing, and just learn from your mistake, and move on! Because it's really starting to get on my nerves!"

Headmaster Ozpin had told Weiss that the way he expected his students, both leaders and teammates alike, to learn was by having them resolve problems independently, fail as was appropriate, and learn from their mistakes.

His methodology, as Weiss had clearly seen, was flawed. After all, if a hunter-in-training were to fail academically, socially, or professionally while in Beacon, they had no means by which to extract a lesson from that failure. The outlook of rugged-individualism failed to take into account that human and Faunus lives were not books being read or movies being watched from afar; they were actively being lived by the people within. Stepping back and taking a comprehensive look at one's shortcomings to determine precisely what went wrong and at what point in time was not something so easily done by overstressed, under-slept teenagers who could barely keep track of their own schoolwork without the aid of an organizational planner.

Weiss had failed. She'd failed Ruby, and that had led her to fail Yang, and that had led her to fail Blake. At one step along the path or another, she'd let down her entire team – including herself. And Weiss could not, for the life of her, figure out what lesson she was supposed to learn.

But it was okay.

It was okay, because her team had figured it out for her. They'd learned Weiss' lesson for her and were no screaming it out in her face, and all she needed to do was listen.

"You're right," Weiss said softly.

"I…I am?" Ruby blinked. "About which part?"

"All of it. But specifically, that I was quitting." Weiss felt some residual shame from her cowardly choice to abandon her team pool up in her stomach. "I was giving up on you all because it was easier for me to just foist the problem onto someone else."

"Weiss, we don't expect you to –"

"But I do. I expect myself to try to fix all of your problems as leader, because that's who I am. And I won't always be able to, but that's the lesson you're teaching me. That's what Ozpin wanted me to learn. It's okay for me to fail, as long as I keep trying."

Ruby clearly had no idea what Weiss was talking about, but she was enthused by the very act of agreement and decided to go along with it.

"Sure! Yeah! So, you won't quit?"

"No, I shall not. After all, if I abandon you in your time of need, who will guide Team RWBY to greatness as we expose a false pretender of a teacher?"

Weiss gave Blake a confident nod, which was met with a wavy smile and two slightly teary eyes. Yang just shot the girls a thumbs-up, content with both the resolution and how it was achieved.

The newly-reconfirmed leader wasn't finished, though. "Who will aid Ruby in overcoming her scholastic difficulties? Who will help Yang redeem herself from her chronic bouts of idiocy?"

The blonde rolled her purple eyes. "I'm right here, you know."

"Who will lead us to victory in the upcoming Vytal Tournament? Who will see our auspicious team through to the splendor for which we are destined?"

"Heck yeah!" Ruby shouted. "Team RWBY is back in business!"

Weiss' head snapped back down to her teammates. "And who will point out that we're late for class?"

"Woohoo – wait, what?"

Weiss help up her scroll. "It's but thirty minutes until our lecture hall with Professor Peach, and both you and Yang need to take their showers. Furthermore, not one of us has taken our early morning meals, and I'm the only one dressed and readied for class. Thus we shall have to hustle if we're going to make it on time. Yang, start preparing you backpack. Ruby, I expect you to be bathed, freshened, and dressed in less than fifteen minutes, or you're going to be left behind. Chop-chop, ladies!"

"Eep!"

Ruby picked herself up and zoomed into the bathroom so quickly that she slid on the watery floor and ran herself right into the shower door. Weiss just caught sight of her going down as her backdraft closed the bathroom door in her wake.

"I'm okay!" she called out.

Yang got up and started rummaging through her disorganized desk, looking for her notebooks wherever she'd misplaced them. "On the plus side, leader Weiss is back. On the minus side, leader Weiss is back. What exactly was our goal again?"

Weiss ignored her joking grumbles. "And as for you, Blake…"

"I think I'll skip makeup for one day," said the cat Faunus. She smiled warmly. "It's good to have you back on top, Schnee."

Weiss nodded and began to prepare her own school supplies for the busy day ahead of her.

It was good to be back.

Next Chapter: Choose a Side

In which Weiss Schnee and her team decide how to part ways, but in a manner most amicably.

Author's Notes

Is it over? Can I come out now?

Alright. Okay. We made it. Whew. Time to start investigating Torchwick...full speed ahead, I guess. *wipes rat sweat* Whew.

Back when Yang beat the shit outta Weiss, I think I said something along the lines of 'there are only two points in the story worse than this.' Well, congrats, Rat's Nest, we just made it through one of 'em. I call it progress; I declare it so!

Also, I think this was our first Blake and Ruby POVs, wasn't it? Also our last for Ruby, and our last for Yang (other than one chapter with extremely short, 3-4 paragraph segments, which just so happen to come around the other uber-depressing Weiss moment mentioned above).

It's not Blake's last POV, though. She'll have a full chapter and a half, later on.

I guess this is also the first time we hear the newer and wiser Ruby's thoughts on Roman. RIP Torchballs. Crescent Rose shall have its vengeance.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!