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Chapter Text

"It's good to be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" Ruby shouted at the top of her lungs, hopping out of the airship and throwing her hands in the air as she announced the return of Team RWBYP to Beacon- much to the collective stares of the other students, some of which weren't even technically Beacon students given that they were just transferred over while Haven was being rebuilt. "TEAM RWBYP IS BACK AT BEACON AND BETTER THAN EVER! WOOOOOOO!"

"Tone it down a little, baby pup," Cinder mentioned lightly, chuckling as she patted Ruby on the shoulder and walked past with a salacious sashay of her hips, both Neo and Emerald taking position on either side of her as their matching rings glittered in the morning light. "It's morning, remember? Let the campus have a few more minutes of peace and quiet before we start blowing things up again."

"Eh, I'll give 'em thirty seconds. Gonna lob a fireball straight at Fox's face the moment I see that bastard," Mercury snorted, brushing past with his hands in his pockets and Talaria very plainly clanking against the ground as he kept an eye out for the redheaded bastard that he had a constant rivalry with. "Promised I would if he stole the last of my cigs, and lo and behold…"

"You need to stop smoking, Merc," Yang chided, punching the silver haired teen's shoulder as he continued tromping away before regrouping with Team RWBYP, who were all mostly clustered around the airship while the crew on board brought out their luggage from the cargo hold. "Man, I wish we had the foresight to mail our stuff here like CMNE did…"

"Well, next year, I suppose," Blake shrugged, giving Yang a little bump with her shoulder and grinning a little as she picked up her carry bag and loaded her luggage onto the included carts that Weiss just… had. Where had she even gotten those?

"If we're even here next year… or in a few weeks time…" Weiss muttered, frowning a little as she loaded her luggage up and grumbled at how Ruby had just absorbed her own and Penny's luggage into herself instead of having to suffer through maneuvering a luggage cart across Beacon like the rest of them. Hmph. "Who knows how many missions we're going on this year…"

"Well, we are supposed to do mostly missions this year," Blake mentioned, rubbing her chin as she looked around for a moment, averting her eyes from where Ruby and Penny were already causing a scene by snuggling right then and there on the landing strip, rose petals flooding the air as they literally glowed together from the sheer synchronization of their Auras. 

Guh. Blinding.

"True… hey, wait, isn't that Team SSSN over there?" Yang mentioned, hugging both Weiss and Blake with one arm each for a moment before looking up and waving at the approaching group of four. "Yo!"

"Yo! Hey, welcome back! Gods, it's been a while, huh? You missed all of last year!" Sun called out as he sauntered up with an easy grin and a wave of his own, the blond faunus flanked by the rest of his team, all of whom looked a lot better than they had the last time Team RWBP saw them… when they'd gotten flung out of the fight against a mind controlled Ruby and had subsequently spent a solid month in the hospital because their Auras had broken and all four of them had broken at least two limbs. And then Mountain Glenn happened, and the Cataclysm happened… Ahem. "Shit, you guys look good! Ruby, how ya been squirt?"

".... I'm not that short anymore…" Ruby whined petulantly before reaching out a bit awkwardly from where she was all but attached to Penny and gave Sun a mild high five, giving him a light grin anyway. "Doing good, though! Holidays were great! How about you?"

"Eh, so and so. Haven's still fucked and ticket prices are insane right now so we were kinda stuck in Vale the whole time- had no idea you guys were still around though or we would asked you to come with when we went skiing," Sun mentioned, rubbing his chin and watching as the rest of the team mingled with the other members of RWBYP. "You coulda seen Neptune fall all over himself trying to snowboard. And… also see me wearing my coat zipped up for the first time in, like, forever."

"... You do kinda wear your shirt open most of the time," Ruby mentioned, pursing her lips.

Penny, meanwhile, blinked slowly at Sun's abs. "... How do you not accidentally expose your nipples with your shirt open like that? I suppose I never found the time to ask before, but I find myself curious now."

"... Uh… I use Aura on my clothes, keeps 'em stiff and stops 'em from flapping where I don't want 'em," Sun explained, clearing his throat a bit awkwardly. "It's a trick you pick up from Vacuo if you live there long enough- Aura armoring your clothes makes it so much less likely to get choked out by your own scarf in a sandstorm."

"I see… that is a good trick to learn!" Penny beamed, then tilted her head. "How do you do it?"

"Eh, I mean it's not that different from using Aura normally? Just kinda… shove it into your clothes the same way you'd do it with a weapon, but not… entirely? It's kinda… eh? Trial and error. It's different for everyone. Not great if you've got a fire type soul though…" Sun mentioned, rubbing his chin and looking over at Yang and Cinder for a moment before wincing. "I knew a couple guys back in Vacuo who got a little heated and set their clothes on fire on accident. Not a great time. Funny, up until the point that they're naked in public and have first degree burns on their junk."

"I see… well, I doubt that Ruby or I will have much in the way of trouble with that, all of our combustible materials have nothing to do with our Aura expressions, as we are both nature aligned, I believe," Penny finished, nodding at Sun before turning to Ruby. "You are nature aligned, correct? I do not think I ever actually asked… though perhaps I maybe should not have assumed due to the rose petals."

"I'm kind of a hybrid wind/nature? Aura alignment gets fuzzy sometimes, y'know?" Ruby shrugged, and leaned against Penny with a little smile before reaching down and clasping their hands together in an instinctive, comfortable fit. "Like, Neo's a light/wind and Cinder's actually got an earth/fire thing going on which is why she's got so much glass going on n' stuff. What was yours?"

"Earth/nature, which I am told makes me a direct, partial opposite to you, wishing star," Penny giggled, nuzzling against Ruby happily while Sun just stood there a bit awkwardly whilst the two all but ignored him. "Perhaps that is why we're so compatible?"

"Mm! Sorta yeah! I did read that opposing soul natures are sometimes more compatible… but also that it was kind of a load of bunk and that relationships were better without just pairing people up based on soul natures, especially when a lot of people never actually find theirs out," Ruby shrugged, squeezing her hand against Penny's, their fingers entwined together and inseparable as she pressed a chaste kiss to Penny's cheek. "I like to think we're soulmates, though… it's kinda romantic that way, y'know?"

"If we were not soulmates before then we definitely are soulmates now," Penny giggled, returning the kiss and scooping Ruby up into a tight, one armed hug- her other maintaining its grip on Ruby's hand. 

"... I'm gonna go talk to Mercury," Sun deadpanned, clearing his throat before moving off to go talk to the silver haired teen instead of acquiring remote, acute diabetes from the two girls before him acting adorably in love. Blech. Way too saccharine and lovey dovey to withstand. 

"... Yeah I'm gonna go do that too," Neptune finally spoke up, having been largely silent the entire time due to not really having anything to say other than just standing there and looking pretty. "... Hey Sun?"

"Yeah?"

"... Y'think it's weird that Scarlet and Neo of all people are friends?" 

"No, why?"

"What do they even talk about?" Neptune wondered, watching as the two of them conversed entirely silently, Scarlet using sign language and Neo just using her body language and various gestures to respond. "Fashion or something?"

"They talk about murder mystery novels, apparently," Sage cut in, clearing his throat a bit. "Also fanfiction. Lots of fanfiction. And anime."

"Ah… well, that explains a few things," Neptune mused, nodding his head in understanding. ".... Wait what kind of anime?"

"Not the kind you like."

"... What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you watch Jhibli movies and Neo and Scarlet watch the most fucked up hentai I've ever seen," Sage deadpanned flatly. "Exclusively to write fix-it fanfiction."

"... What the fuck?"

"Our friends are weird, Nep. We've known this for a while now."

"... I mean… yeah… yeah."

"Mhmm."

"Yup…"