71

Black Rose Blooms SilverCyberQueen_Jolyne

Chapter 71

Chapter Text

"Okay… midterms are over, finals are coming up in a month and a half, Penny is coming with us back to Patch with her spare charging gear, Blake and Weiss decided to come with Yang, it's the middle of spring which means there's probably going to be a planting festival down south, Blake said that the White Fang hasn't done anything lately but there's been talks of robberies starting back up but quieter this time… weird…" Ruby muttered to herself, pacing back and forth on top of the first year dorms and rubbing her chin as she sorted through her thoughts. She hummed, feeling the pulsing web of emotions that dotted all of Beacon and the little bit of Vale she could sense from her current position, pursing her lips as she thought about the events of the first three and a half months of Beacon.

What a wild time, honestly- she'd gotten into the premier Huntsman academy two years early, ended up on a team with her sister, Weiss Schnee, and her partner Blake who might as well be an actual princess, fought the White Fang, blew up a bunch of grimm, mauled Blake's shitty ex, got a girlfriend, revealed her grimmness to her friends and been accepted as she was, learned the truth about why Professor Ozpin always seemed to be feeling double the emotions of anyone else, and done a bunch of other stuff that made a lot of her professors yell at her either for reckless endangerment or for breaking parts of buildings. Which… was absolutely her fault, but in her defense- Beacon offered free use of its forging and armament delivery services to students and returning alumni (Within reason) and well.

Ruby had always wanted to be able to shoot down a Leviathan with one shot, as unlikely as it was. She hadn't really changed much about Crescent Rose, though, aside from modifying the loading mechanism to accept longer shells so she could make bigger bullets. And also replacing a lot of the panels and blade with much better equivalents (making sure to melt down the alloy panels she had so she could reuse them for later projects). 

"Oh right, gotta do a full workup on Crocea Mors, might need to take a scraping off the blade and shield to make sure the material is compatible with mechashift procedures- if not, I might need to have him send the entire thing home and make Crocea Mors II… no way I'm taking a family heirloom for myself, nuh uh. I like weapons but not enough to do that," Ruby continued mumbling, the shattered moon shining down on her as she kept vocalizing her thoughts and setting up her plans for the next few weeks. "Mmm… Ren and Pyrrha said they're fine for now, but I've seen Ren looking up grappling hooks in his spare time so I might add a grapple function to Stormflower, upscale its firepower some… He's also got that knife from his dad, but I can't touch that… Pyrrha is entirely fine as she is, though I'd like to redo some of her components and upscale her range and firepower so she can use larger caliber shots… She'll definitely need some more ammo types, she's been using standard kinetic types and not enough high impact or incendiary… right…"

Ruby huffed, looking out over the silent campus of Beacon and shaking her head as she decided to hop off of the roof and go on a walk- for once, Penny was already asleep without her, having taken an exact duplicate to bed while she transferred her consciousness into a Rosebud and swapped places. It wasn't that she didn't want to be cuddling with Penny, but her thoughts were full tonight and she really wanted to get everything in order. 

The cold air brushed across her skin as she fell to the ground and landed with nary a sound- having shifted out Geist features whilst falling so she could break her fall before retracting the mono-eyed mask and returning to her walk. It was… weird, exploring Beacon at night. Everything seemed so different, so unfamiliar. So… liminal. 

It almost felt like anything could happen, really. Night time was the time of the ghosts, or so the old stories said. Ruby was more than familiar with those, being born on October 31st and sharing a date with Hallow's Eve. There were a lot of old stories about stuff that happened in Huntsman schools, where there were ghosts of past students who met a grisly fate before they graduated or the occasional specter or phantom on the grounds. Ruby didn't put much stock into those as she glided along silently, not making a sound as she floated just barely above the ground using a new set of Geist features to actually fly instead of just break her fall. If anyone was the ghost on campus, it was her. Especially since she actually could phase into and through objects if she actually did a more complete transformation into a Geist. Add to that the white and red cloak she wore in remembrance of her mother (and, mostly, to prevent Blake from remembering Adam too much. Her partner hadn't said much about it lately, but she seemed less stressed than before so that was nice) and her silent glide… yeah.

Hm.

Actually, it'd be pretty funny if she got mistaken as a ghost by some sleep addled classmate who happened to be walking by. She could be like all, grr, raah! You have been visited by the ghost of the Rose Queen! And then extort them for offerings of candy or something. Then again, she'd feel kinda bad doing that when she could already get as much candy as she wanted just by either making it, using Weiss' credit card, or stealing it out of the cafeteria.

Hmm.

Ruby hummed, rubbing her belly as she looked around, following an aimless path around campus towards the staff dorms and the administrative buildings, idly licking her lips as she thought about baking cookies for later… and by later she meant just baking them, letting them sit the appropriate time, and then devouring them off of the tray like the horrific cookie nightmare monster she was. Oh, and making sure to give a handful to Penny, of course!

Penny deserved more, but the cookie beast in Ruby's belly hungered and as bad as she felt not splitting evensies with her beautiful, wonderful, amazing, tough, strong, badass, adorable, kind, soft, nice smelling, breathtaking girlfriend… Penny didn't need to eat and only did so in small amounts to fuel the systems that let her repair microabrasions and small tears in her artificial skin. Ruby didn't need to eat either but she wasn't at risk of overflowing her internal systems if she stuffed herself with cookies and cake and candy and pastries and chocolate and soda and all of the most unhealthy things in the world and lots and lots of raw bloody meat that…

Huh.

Ruby hummed, stopping outside of the entrance to the staff dormitories and tapping her chin. There wasn't really anything stopping Ruby from hunting down deer in the Emerald Forest or Forever Fall if she really wanted to… it'd sure be cheaper than buying a hundred pounds of fresh beef carcass from the butcher every now and then. Plus it'd help her get used to hunting in smaller grimm forms than her own natural body. Like, say, a normal Beowolf.

Yeah, that'd be pretty fun. And after that she could use the remainder and some of the bones for stew, plus she could use some of the waste material for other stuff and sell off the hide if she needed some extra spending money. She'd just have to look up some guides… ooh, maybe Penny'd like to help? Mmm… maybe, maybe not. Something to ask later.

She was thrown out of her reverie, though, as she sensed an immense wave of shock, fear, and strangely hope ripple through someone as they flung themselves from the window and landed with the slightest of taps behind Ruby, the emotional texture of said person (plus, taking a peek with her own grimm eyes hidden beneath her cloak) revealed it to be… Professor Goodwitch?

She looked… tired. And was only in her pajamas?

Wait why did she look like she'd seen a-

Oh…

Oh.

Right. Her cloak. Her mother's cloak.

"Summer!?"

Oops.

Wincing, Ruby cleared her throat and turned around, pulling down her hood and letting her cloak billow out and warp into its usual black and red, waving at her professor with an awkward grin. "Uh, hi! Professor Goodwitch! Fancy meeting you out here! Um… are… you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost… and also just shouted my mom's name… um… you look…. Really tired…"

Professor Goodwitch… stopped, eyes widening for a moment before she slumped down and sighed, rubbing her eyes and grumbling under her breath as she gave the grimm girl a slightly baleful glare with one eye- glasses perched on her head and utterly useless at the moment. "Miss… Miss Rose. What… are you doing out so late? You have class in the morning and it's past campus lights out hours. And… why were you-?"

"Oh! My mom's cloak? Yeah um… so… Blake has a thing about red and black cuz of her ex-boyfriend and she was normally pretty chill about it until about a month in when we fought the White Fang at the docks and then she kinda got a little testy about it but it didn't really start getting bad until like, around the end of the second month this semester cuz she's been trying really hard to keep an eye on White Fang movements in the area and it was really stressing her out and she started flinching when I got too close too fast and she's my partner so I had to ask what was going on and she told me that it was, again, because of her terrible ex-boyfriend who was super mean and abusive and also blew off my head but that was fine because I ripped off his arm with my teeth after I regenerated and the long story short is that I've been wearing my mom's cloak… or uh, at least y'know, making my cape look like my mom's cloak… so she sees more white and black than red and black and hopefully she'll feel better soon when we get back to Patch and has some time to soak up the nature and stuff and-"

"That's quite enough of an explanation- I'm sorry for mistaking you for your late mother," Professor Goodwitch sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose before shaking her head and leaning down a little to place a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Summer was a friend of mine, back when we were in Beacon. She was a fourth year, I was a first year, but Team STRQ roomed right above my team- Team AGNT, Argent- and she always found time to help as many people as she could when they needed help. You're very much like her in that regard."

"I… thanks, Professor." Ruby shuddered a little, not sure how to react to the sudden new information about her mother she'd never heard before and clearing her throat a bit awkwardly. "Um… I'm… not in trouble, am I? For uh… seeing you like this?"

Professor Goodwitch sighed, patting Ruby's shoulder and giving her a gentle push in the direction of the dorms. "No, you're not in trouble Miss Rose. But please- go back to your dorm. Get some sleep. And…"

She paused, chewing her lip.

"If you want to hear more about how I knew your mother, you know my office hours. The offer extends to Miss Xiao Long as well, by the way."

"Right… thanks. It- it means a lot to me, hearing about my mom. I'll… see if Yang wants to come with."

"Of course. Goodnight, Ruby."

"Goodnight Professor!"

And as Ruby zoomed off back to the RWBY dorm… she couldn't help but feel that tiny spike of grief sprouting in Professor Goodwitch's soul. She sighed.

Losing mom really was a tragedy for the whole world, wasn't it?