17

 Chapter 17

Everything was going smoothly. He found some old guy's shop and gave him enough of a scare to give out the dust without any fuss. Then one of Junior's goons was sent flying. So he sent another one to see what happened. A moment later a red blur passed him and said goon was sprawled on the asphalt in front of the store, a little girl standing on top of him.

Good thing she brought her sweetheart with her. And now to do her duty as a mostly law abiding citizen and stop a robbery. The thugs left the store and made a semicircle around her. Their leader(?) stepped out last.

"What are you waiting for? Get her." He ordered his henchmen.

She had to be careful. Their weapons were terrible, no skill to speak of and none of them even had their aura unlocked. She pulled her punches, didn't even fire on them and always used the flat of the blade. Or she just kicked them in the face.

Soon the half a dozen beaten up adult men were laying all over the street and groaning in pain.

"You were worth every cent. Truly, you were." The bowl hat wearing man commented seeing his men utter incompetence. He threw away his cigar and started monologuing. "Well Red, I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening." He stepped a bit closer and changed his grip on the cane. "And as much as I'd love to stick around…" He raised the cane. It was a gun and Ruby was now staring down its barrel. "I'm afraid this is wh-"

The rest of his speech was cut off as Ruby blitzed him and went for an overhead strike with the blunt side of the blade. Should have brought my darling too…

Instead of dropping unconscious, the criminal's aura lit up and stopped the hit from doing any real damage. In a small moment of surprise he was able to fire off his cane into the ground creating a cloud of dust. When it settled he was nowhere in sight. Shortly she saw the man in a spotless white suit climbing up the ladder at a nearby building. The shopkeep was safe and the thugs wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. So she followed after him.

Her semblance flew her over the edge of the rooftop and still midair she shot the fleeing criminal in the back of his knee with a rubber bullet. Maybe she should have tried to reason but he was armed, had aura, and she as a sniper should never stick around in the open for too long. Unless she had Yang around to act as one hell of a roadblock.

He stumbled and fell over the edge. Wide-eyed Ruby was ready to rush after to catch him but then she heard the sound of bullhead engines and slowly the vehicle appeared in her view, the criminal smirking at her from the opened hull.

"End of the line, Red." He shouted over the roaring engines. In his hand was a large red crystal. As soon as he threw it, Ruby shot it out of the air causing it to explode. Through the fireball a slow-moving projectile flew at her. She was ready to dissolve into petals to dodge the attack but then a white and purple blur dropped in front of her and shielded her with a purple see-through shield.

Shoulder length blonde hair, riding crop and a purple halfcape. Ruby easily recognized one of Vale's best huntresses. She gave her a small nod and jumped back. Quickly switching to the incendiary bullets she aimed for the engine of the bullhead. Unfortunately due to Glynda's attack the bullhead was shaking so much that instead of the engine she hit the tail.

The bullhead stabilized before Glynda was able to continue her attack, creating a storm with a generous application of wind and ice dust and rained icicles on it.

Then a woman in a red dress showed up. Upper half of her body was still hidden in the darkness inside the hull but even then Ruby could see one of her eyes literally spew flames.

Something was wrong with her. Every fiber of her being was telling her that she didn't belong. A foreign threat to her very existence.

Glynda and the strange woman exchanged blows, neither getting an upper hand. Ruby was trying to hit her with a few sniper rounds but the bullets melted before reaching their target. Ugh. This is like fighting Yang! She felt a large build up of foreign power under her. It behaved similarly to dust casting but the energy felt different. But if this woman wanted to blow up the entire roof she had another thing coming.

O fable co-... she wasn't able to finish as Glynda pushed her out of the blast radius with what was probably her semblance.

The woman gave them one last glare before the hull doors closed and the beaten up bullhead sped off.

In the darkness of the bullhead's hull Cinder had a complicated expression on her face. For a second the part of her that she came to associate with the maiden powers went utterly berserk. And all of that rage was directed at the small girl that foiled Roman's robbery. She was sure that the girl wasn't a maiden but it still didn't explain why her magic misbehaved.

-BBW-

Yang walked out of the Vale's postal office filled with barely contained anger. Signal's staff had 'accidentally' botched up her paperwork and now she had to run around the city like a complete moron so she could get it back in order. I just told the truth. Should have set the place on fire before leaving, Ruby would appreciate the extra holiday.

Her normal scroll ringed and a picture of Ruby was displayed along the tune.

"Hey sis, don't worry, I was just leaving the last place. I'll be there soon"

"Yeah… about that. I got caught up in a robbery and needed to give testimony. Pick me up at VPD, okay?"

It took Yang several seconds to process what she just heard but after she did, she roared, not noticing the call had already ended.

"YOU DID WHAT?"

-BBW-

When Ozpin arrived at the police station he didn't expect much. Chatting policemen and an occasional mad scramble in case something came up. However, to his surprise, when he walked down the hall leading towards the small room Glynda should have brought Miss Rose he saw very few people and most of them were anxious to come close to the doors. He signed, he knew that Glynda could be rather harsh, especially when in a bad mood, but she shouldn't have lashed out at the poor men and women around.

When he entered the room, a plate of cookies in hand, the situation became even stranger. Glynda and Ruby were standing on the opposite sides of the room and glaring at each other and the very pale intern was hiding in the corner.

He was suddenly a few decades younger, Glynda and Summer came to the dance wearing the same dress. The dancehall needed to be fully rebuilt afterwards.

"Can anybody explain what is going on here?" He calmly asked.

Ruby gave him only a glance, but he did notice her eyes widened in both recognition as well as anticipation, when she saw the sweets he brought.

The pale policeman was of no help so Glynda had to explain the situation herself. "Miss Rose refuses to let go of her weapons."

Before Ozpin could ask her to elaborate Ruby was already shouting. "I'm not going to give my babies to some incompetent busymen!"

Another sign escaped his lips. It would seem that no matter the era, he would always be surrounded by children.

"Please, leave us." He spoke to the scared intern who looked more than happy to oblige his request. He then looked to Glynda and Ruby. Brushing past her, he took a seat at the small table and placed the plate in front of the opposite seat, gesturing to Ruby to do so as well. "I think we are all responsible enough for this to go smoothly."

After giving Glynda one last glare she took the seat. And immediately destroyed any tension by starting to devour cookies at an incredible speed.

Seeing that nothing would go wrong anymore he decided to proceed with his plan. The one that he came up with while on the bullhead. Hopefully Glynda won't ruin it.

"Ruby Rose." She looked up from the plate."You… have silver eyes." And wasn't that a good thing, Qrow and Tai stonewalled him to the point that he only knew that summer had a daughter but that was about it. Unknowingly, he just raised quite a few red flags in Ruby's head.

"Um…" Should she act dumb? Lie her way out? Would she get away if she decided to run? Thankfully Ozpin changed the topic.

"So. Where did you learn to do this?" He spoke as Glynda showed a camera recording of her fight.

"Ehm… at Signal Academy."

"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?"

"Well… it was mostly just one teacher."

"I see… it's just that I've only seen one other scythe-wielder of that skill. A dusty old crow"

"More like a drunky old crow." She slightly giggled. "Although I'm still not as skilled as him. Even after training under him for years."

"Perhaps. Though I wonder what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors."

"Well, I want to be a huntress!"

"You want to slay monsters?"

"Yeah… just you know, help and protect people in general. I have two more years of training left at Signal! And then I'm going to apply to Beacon. You see, my sister is starting there this year," Glynda rolled her eyes at the memory of their chat. "And she is going to become a huntress so I thought that when the both of us are huntresses we could do missions together! Help people, kill monsters and it would be so cool!" She finished.

An awkward silence settled in as Ruby was catching her breath after her small outburst.

"... do you know who I am?" Ozpin finally spoke.

"You're Professor Ozpin, headmaster of Beacon."

"Hello."

"Hi."

"You want to come to my school?"

"More than anything."

He looked at Glynda… and he would definitely get an earful later.

"Well okay."

-BBW-

While the talks deep inside the police station were reaching its conclusion, the situation in the front was different. The lobby where people would wait for their complaints to be filed was sitting comfortably at 130F courtesy of a one very angry blonde teenager. Unfortunately for everyone present, the police couldn't do anything about her. Dealing with a huntress in training was way above both their skill and pay and the huntsman commander, who was currently in the same building, apparently didn't even care and was actually talking to the blonde's sister.

Yang was ready to go in and find Ruby herself consequences be damned when a red blur shot out from one of the side doors. It immediately closed in and she let herself be carried away. Once outside Ruby materialized properly and started to do a really bad celebratory dance while screaming that she got accepted to Beacon. After a few seconds she stopped, remembering a tiny comment Ozpin made at the beginning of their meeting.

"We need to go to the hotel! I have to tell you something!"

-BBW-

It took Ruby almost an hour to go through the robbery and the following events. In hindsight, she already had her suspicions that Ozpin could be a leader of a cult. Now he just straight up walked up to her sister, pointed out her magical eyes and invited her to his school on the spot. Not weird at all. She would leave it for now, he did her good by inviting Ruby to Beacon early so unless he made any untoward moves she wouldn't bother with it. On the other hand…

Torchwick was a tricky one. One one hand he attacked Ruby, on the other hand it made it possible for her to enroll early. And it wasn't like he was good enough to even hurt her but it's the attempt that counted. His new sidekick who tried to set Ruby on fire and made her feel weird… she would need to see for herself if she shows up again, but she would have to go.

All in all…"Hah, I knew you could do it, Rubes!" She was quite happy that they would be able to attend Beacon together, making sure they were on the same team wouldn't be that hard. And if Oz wanted a magical girl in his school then he better accommodate her properly. "Come on, we need to go back to pack your stuff."

-BBW-

"What are you doing Oz? We already have enough troubles as it is, you can't accept everyone who asks!" Glynda yelled at him as they were sitting inside a bullhead.

"I assure you that I am very careful when accepting new students." He weakly tried to defend himself.

"Belladonna and Amitola?"

"They are trying to turn a new leaf, we should help them."

"You can't know that!"

"I prefer to believe in the good of the people."

"Winchester?"

"He is just a little rough, I'm sure we will be able to make him into a proper huntsman."

If it wasn't for her professionalism she would throw him out of the bullhead.

-BBW-

She dragged Yang out of the house late in the evening. Her birthday ended on a somewhat bitter note and Yang was a bit moody for almost a month now so it was her duty as an awesome little sister to cheer her up! And what better way to cheer up than fireworks! Yang brought her the necessary items so she might as well show her what it could do! Small wooden boat with a five feet long and three feet wide metallic box in the middle. Remote controls were working fine, so she kicked it off and let it go beyond the horizon. Then she pressed the big red button™

"-sa Lavender with the latest news. Roman Torchwick's stream of robberies continues, even after one was foiled two days ago. The SDC expressed concerns over the protection of their products. A Faunus rights rally turned violent, tens of people were arrested. The meteorologists are still investigating the strange occurrence north of Patch that took place on the 23rd of August. The weath-"

Ruby slightly tensed up at the last mention. While it was a success, she underestimated the area of effect. At least it seemed they thought it was some sudden hurricane. The flight to Beacon was uneventful or Ruby simply didn't notice. After spending all of the previous night having an argument with her dad and then packing all of her equipment she was really tired. Funny thing is that in the end they left the majority of it behind until they got assigned a proper storage space. Yang, who also spent the night helping her, looked completely fine and was quite excited. She should be too. This was a big step for them. They would get themselves a team and become great huntresses! Hopefully nothing would go wrong… Several people around Vale sneezed.

-BBW-

"Can you stop fooling around with your semblance already? Your eyes dilating so much can't be healthy." Blake annoyedly told Ilia, who was turning her semblance on and off for about ten minutes.

"I'm sizing up the crowd." She shot back. While one's aura reserves weren't a mark of their competence, larger ones usually meant that the person put more effort into training. Although she might need to stop soon. To her dismay, her own reserves weren't that large and as she saw more and more people leave the bullheads and enter Beacon's front lawn she realized that she was barely average, maybe even slightly lower. Blake was above average but not by much. All that seemed meaningless when she remembered the moment she caught the headmaster in her semblance's range. If her semblance wasn't mostly mental but actually connected to her eyes she might have gone blind! "Also, if we could get in this easily, then Adam could have sneaked someone in as well."

So she continued looking. Nothing seemed off, except the odd pair, in which the guy's aura was almost see-through and she only noticed because his, probably, girlfriend kept jumping around him and her aura quite literally sparked. She also had almost the same amount of aura as her and Blake combined… poor guy. So far the largest reserves belonged to some tall girl with a red ponytail. She would have investigated further but she quickly went inside and was sitting in one place since.

The real shocker came when she saw two nearly identical white auras be so close to each other that it was like they belonged to one person. She would call bullshit but her 'aura-radar' wasn't that fool proof. Blake's clones still showed up and the only difference between them and the original was the amount of aura displayed. Although, what was the name of the book Blake was reading?

"Something wrong?" Blake asked, seeing her friend's puzzled expression.

"Just saw something weird. Can you pass me binoculars? I want to check what it was." She easily found her target as it slowly moved from the bullhead pads to the amphitheater. When she did, she almost snapped the eyeglasses in half.

"Oh for fucks sake!"

"?" Blake only raised an eyebrow at the outburst.

"A bloody Schnee is here!"

And she was the one with a dual aura! What the hell have they been doing while nobody was looking? Creating supersoldiers? She tried to zero in her semblance to get more insight only to be once again almost 'blinded' by red and especially yellow light, when the next bullhead landed.

-BBW-

"So… are you ready sis?" Yang asked. A confident smirk on her lips as she stepped out of the bullhead.

"Yeah! We've got this!" Ruby cheered, excitement of being in Beacon hitting her full force.

"Hah! Let's go then."

"... where?"

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Replies

To Kyunin9: Unless either Ruby or Yang start invoking it right in front of him, then there isn't any way to notice it without strapping them on the table and hooking up an excessive amount of aura scanning equipment. While their aura reserves are larger than usual it isn't an unexpected occurrence. Aura is like a muscle, while affected by genetics and mental state of the person, its growth correlates mostly with training. Ruby and Yang are daughters of one of the best hunters, 'stable' and determined and spend essentially half of their lives training. Jaune having insane reserves from the get go is an exception, the two of them having large one is pretty much an expectation.

To Dan1142000: Raven's semblance works as an aura tracker of sorts. If the person with the tracker has enough understanding and control over their own aura they can purge it. As for Summer… I'm not sure yet, I left myself some room to maneuver, but I'm unsure what part she should play in the story. Don't expect to see her anytime soon.