124

Chapter 124Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Something is happening back at Beacon," Ruby muttered, staring off into the distance and frowning as she kept watch over the area. She huffed to herself, eyes peering through the darkness as if it wasn't even there, Crescent Rose scanning over the area as she peered through the scope with only half of her attention while she instead focused on the goings on at Beacon right on the edge of her emotion sensing range. "Something… someone was hurt… Cinder was scared… but now she's… I think she's about to…"

"About to accept Professor Ozpin's offer, I would assume," Penny stated quietly, hugging Ruby from behind and nuzzling into her girlfriend's hair from behind, arms locking around Ruby's waist as she pressed in close and enjoyed the sensation of touch through her sensors. "I do hope she remains safe…"

"Yeah… we can't do anything about it right now, but…" Ruby shook her head, leaning back slightly as she pulled Crescent Rose back and pursed her lips, her grimm material within her weapon writhing as it formed an internal muzzle brake to muffle the sound of any shots she might need to take during the night. "I really, really hope nothing goes wrong. I'd try to send a Rosebud or something to check in on her, but they always fall apart after only a few miles and Beacon is like ten miles away from here and… guh. I wish everything was simple, firefly…"

She sighed, holding Crescent Rose on a tripod of grimmstuff as a Rosebud formed to hold watch instead, leaning back further into Penny's arms and curling up against the warm, gently vibrating form of Penny's chassis. "I miss back a few months ago, before everything got all… bleh. All this sneaking around and plots to bring down Vale and the White Fang stuff and the weirdness going on and then that Salem lady… I miss when we were just happy to be friends n' stuff. And… I miss when we weren't constantly on edge thinking about all this stuff … I thought life as a Huntress would be easy, y'know? Well… not really easy… but I thought it'd be simple. Go out, kill grimm all day and night, save a bunch of people, beat up bandits, make sure bad people can't hurt people anymore… but now we have all this… stuff … and it's just… it's nuts y'know firefly?"

"Our lives have indeed been somewhat more difficult than most would assume they would be as Beacon students, it is true, but all the same… I am glad that I can experience it all with you anyway, wishing star," Penny answered, smiling softly and projecting love and hope into her Aura as she let it brush against Ruby's, nuzzling against Ruby's hair and kissing her ears softly as one hand wandered down and nestled smoothly against Ruby's hand. Their fingers entwined, and Ruby sighed again- this time in relief as Penny's familiar soothing warmth ensconced her in what might as well have been a cocoon of love. Her own body reacted the same, waves of warmth crashing against Penny's Aura as her own flickered to life.

"I'm glad you're here too, firefly. I wouldn't change that for anything," Ruby chuckled a bit, turning around fully and snuggling into Penny's arms with a happy little sigh, Penny sitting down against the wall while Ruby curled into her lap. The two of them sat there, barely moving and saying nothing for a long moment as they took solace in each other's presence.

"If there's anything I would change, I think I would like to change the way that we met," Penny murmured, humming softly as she gently scratched along the base of Ruby's ear, smiling at the way Ruby's tail brushed against her leg as it wagged gently back and forth. "It would have been nice had we started out with a more positive impression of each other. I think I would have fallen for you sooner had we a more normal greeting. But other than that, I wouldn't change anything either."

"Heh… yeah… our first meeting was pretty rough," Ruby giggled, nuzzling into Penny's neck with a happy little hum of contentment as Penny's hands roamed around along her back, scritching her gently beneath her cape as if she was a large dog. Ruby didn't mind, though. She rather enjoyed the sensation anyway, and it was Penny doing it so how could she not love it? She hummed quietly, then pressed a gentle kiss to Penny's collarbone and traced up the side of her neck with a series of soft, gentle smooches. "Mwah! I'm still glad it happened anyway, because it meant that I got to meet you."

"Indeed!" Penny paused, then tilted her head. "Additionally, I have been monitoring the network usage in this area, and there is a surprising amount of signals being broadcasted around the area. Should I track them?"

"Hm? What do you mean signals- wait, hold on… I completely forgot about checking where the White Fang base was! Dang it!" Ruby huffed, focusing on the present again instead of how much she just wanted to snuggle into Penny's embrace and never let go ever again. She withdrew her head almost blearily, her emotion senses stretching out again as she searched for the location of the White Fang base- it actually wasn't even that far!? Huh? How had she missed it? She'd completely ignored the entire cluster of emotional signals moving in and around the underbelly of Mountain Glenn for- for a while now. What the heck? "How did I miss all of that…? There's so many people down there… and a lot of them feel really worried. Like… nervous. And like they don't wanna be here. Like they're having doubts? There's only a couple dozen who seem to want to be there and they're all burning with quiet anger- y'know the kind that just simmers for a long time?"

She paused, tilting her head. "I mean, maybe not personally but like, in media or something?"

"I am aware, wishing star," Penny nodded slowly, tilting her head as she traced the signals she could see floating around- most of them aimed at the relay station near the walls. Interesting. Mountain Glenn was too far away from Vale for normal scroll signals to reach so they must have a signal booster somewhere… interesting. "Continue?"

"Oh, right. I was saying. There's… about two hundred people total, and like… foooortyish who'll actually try to fight us, probably? I mean, we might be able to convince them all to leave if we scare them enough… We might have to talk to Blake about it in the morning," Ruby pursed her lips and huffed as she buried her face into Penny's shoulder again. "Ugh… there's something about this place that feels like it's scrambling my brain a little. Like I'm forgetting something important. I don't know if I should take point on this, now that I think about it… it's…"

Ruby frowned, scratching at her shoulder awkwardly as she tried to think about what the feeling in her mind was- it felt… fuzzy and weird and there was something about it that was familiar but… bleh. It was hard to concentrate the harder she pushed her emotion senses. "I don't know- I might end up kinda unreliable if I rush on ahead, so I think I'd be better off doing backline support for now? It's… There's also four signatures that feel really weird and I really don't like it. Like… it's wrong in a familiar way? I almost wanna say it feels like one of the foreign teams but I don't spend enough time around them to actually notice… it also kinda feels like… remember during the Dance? Where Gwen was like… she was weirdly blank? But kinda not? Ugh… it's really weird, firefly."

"I won't pretend to understand your senses more than you do, but that does indeed seem quite weird ," Penny agreed, pursing her lips and running her fingers through Ruby's hair again and nuzzling her cheek against her girlfriend's head gently before looking up at the cloudy sky and frowning. "There is more going on than we know, and I only hope that we figure everything out before our enemies' plans reach fruition."

"Mmm… Salem has to be stopped," Ruby murmured, fisting her hands in Penny's clothes and shuddering a little. "She… I don't want to go through any of that ever again. It was horrible. I… it was like all of my rage came out and it hurt everyone around me and… Bleh. We've had this conversation before. It's just… it sucks, firefly. I'm… for the first time in a really long time…"

She shuddered again, whimpering a little as her grimm matter writhed and collapsed in on herself, forming into her corgi body as she snuggled into Penny's grip and took comfort in the warmth and tightness of her girlfriend's arms. Ruby stayed silent for a long moment, and Penny stayed silent as well, simply waiting for Ruby to finish what she was about to say with a comforting smile on her face.

"I think… I think for the first time in a really, really long time… I'm… scared …"

Penny sighed quietly, holding Ruby tight and pulsing her Aura against Ruby's. "Then I'll be brave for you, wishing star. We'll get through this together, one step at a time. Okay?"

"... okay…"

Notes:

Things are gonna go bad in a few chapters- buckle up!