5

Show me what you've got sis!

The two sisters stood opposite of one another, both competitive and determined but neither really caring about the result. This was just another form of bonding for them. Like a pillow fight, really. Yang would not hold back. Ruby might be younger and less experienced but even then she would handily beat most of Yang's class. It was also a matter of respect. To hold back would mean that she did not see Ruby as an actual threat. That wouldn't do. It was acceptable to go easy on people who barely knew which end of the sword was sharp and were liable to shoot themselves in the face if left alone for too long. Her sister was different, her nightly excursion somewhat an open secret between the two of them and she always came back without a scratch. It was time to show the kids what it meant to fight monsters!

Yang will try to immediately close the distance. Right hand lunge followed by a flurry of quick jabs with shotguns going off every punch. If failed then then will calm down the assault and start testing the waters. Ruby mulled over everything she knew about her sister's fighting style while both of them were waiting for their father to tell them to go at it. While Yang didn't have time to watch her training with uncle Qrow or her solitary practices, she was still aware of the basics like Ruby's weaponry and fighting philosophy. Ruby on the other hand knew almost everything. She helped with designing Ember Celica, Yang's shotgun gauntlets and also was doing the maintenance on them at least once a week. She watched Yang's training with their father, she had extensive notes on her semblance and knew her overall aura level. The best strategy would be to blitz her before her semblance gets charged up. If they were in the open she might have been able to keep her distance and all of Yang's strength would be meaningless but the arena simply wasn't big enough to give Ruby the space necessary. She had the means to win instantly but… it felt wrong. She was yet to understand how her semblance worked properly and she simply wasn't comfortable using it in that way against people. Using grimm as a test dummies was fine, she was hunting them anyway, might as well use them to figure out what her semblance does. But she would try anyway. Yang would be disappointed if she went down without a fight.

"Aaand… go"

Yang shot both of her gauntlets behind her to gain more speed and jumped in a great lunge. Ruby became a cloud of rose petals and went right under her and readied her rifle, waiting for Yang to land.

Crash

Yang landed where Ruby stood a second ago with a great punch into the floor. She knew her sister was already out of her reach but a dust cloud could save her from any immediate gunfire. She had to keep moving, as long as she had the initiative she could pressure Ruby into moving, not giving her enough time to line up her shots.

Ruby saw a muzzle flash on the left side of the small dust cloud, instant after her sister emerged and was running towards her.

Bang

Yang barely sidestepped the bullet that would have otherwise gone into her kneecap. Still too soft, should have gone for the head… or the chest.

Whoosh

In a flurry of rose petals Ruby was behind Yang. Crescent Rose now fully deployed, it's blade now aimed at Yang's neck. In the last second Yang made a front flip over the scythe and shot at her while upside down. Ruby fought through the small pellets, spun her weapon around and went for another slash. She got Yang on the shoulder. With the first exchange over, Ruby tried to get some distance, Yang quickly gave chase. Ruby fired off the sniper to give the scythe more momentum and threw it at Yang like a giant buzzsaw.

Yang threw herself sideways and grew rather confused as the scythe embedded itself on the opposite end of the arena. For Ruby to willingly part with her weapon? What next, Qrow will stop drinking?

Bang

Yang's instincts screamed in alarm and she barely had time to duck. Even then she felt a bullet glance on the side of her head. In Ruby's hand was now the biggest pistol Yang had seen so far. In her other hand she held a sword. Yang didn't have time to wonder when Ruby expanded her arsenal as she had to quickly jump away. Split second later there was a small hole in the floor, courtesy of another bullet. She had to get up close. Blocking the next bullet with her gauntlet, Yang closed the distance and struck with a left hand haymaker.

Ruby met the punch with her sword. Yang's semblance was already going so instead of trying to fight a physically superior opponent, Ruby released the blade from the handle and hit Yang on the chin with the pommel. She was now too close, Yang knew that as well, and because of that instead of zipping away using her semblance she was launched in the air with a left hook. While mid-air, Ruby reoriented herself and used her semblance and went to collect her scythe.

Yang was a bit disoriented from the hit on her chin, so when Ruby went for her primary weapon there wasn't much she could do about it. Instead she started running towards it, using recoil of her shotguns to zig-zag through the bullets. Despite her best efforts Ruby was still able to hit her in the shoulder and to her abdomen. In a rather crazy gamble Yang shot one burst in Ruby's direction. In a small pause it gave her, she retracted one of her gauntlets into compact form, poured all of the accumulated energy from her semblance into her arms and threw it with all of her strength at Ruby who was lining up her next shot. An indignant squawk later the horn resounded over the arena. The match was over. Ruby lost with her aura dropping into red after a metal donut hit her straight in the forehead. Yang herself was in the yellow but all the running around left her quite drained. Ruby, unbothered by losing the match, already ran up to her and started whining about how much she just damaged Ember Celica by throwing it and how much work it will take to recalibrate it. Yang just gave her a tired smile and gestured towards the showers. Neither of them bothered to listen to whatever announcement Tai was making.

-BBW-

Stupid Yang! How could she just throw away Ember Celica! Ruby fumed as she dried up her hair after exiting the shower. Yang left some time ago. She didn't even need to dry her hair anymore, she could just activate her semblance, ask Ruby for a fistbump and she would be dry after barely a minute. Ruby finished dressing up and started heading outside. The classes had ended and they were free to go home. She had to check on Crescent Rose and then Ember Celica. When she walked out she saw Yang being surrounded by older boys, every one of them with a weapon. She thought them to be Yang's friends but they all seemed rather angry. She couldn't see Yang's face but if this was a misunderstanding she could always run away and pretend it never happened. With her mind made up she took a step forward and called out to them.

"Hey! What are you doing!?"

Wait, I left my baby inside!

*moments earlier*

Her shoulder still hurt a bit. Maybe telling Ruby to rebuild her rifle later was a bad idea, even now it packed quite a punch. Yang was waiting for Ruby to get outside so they could both go home. She saw some of her classmates nearby and asked them what Tai was talking about after they left. Apparently he had to calm some people down because seeing one student behead the other only to be launched across half of the arena with one punch gave them a bit of a scare. Pff suckers. She went back to waiting when her peace of mind was rudely disturbed.

"How did it feel? Almost losing to some little brat. And you were so tough just a week ago… or was it because you daddy was around?"

Yang immediately activated her semblance, it cost almost nothing but red eyes and flaming hair were quite good for intimidation.

"What do you want now?" She already had to deal with him once. He tried to be nice and ask her out, when she refused he threw a tantrum and tried to prove her wrong by badmouthing her and even tried to throw a punch. As soon as he raised his arm Yang punched him in the guts and kicked off his legs. Good times. His friends wanted to get involved too but Tai showed up to the class and none of it was brought up. But he definitely remembered and held a grudge. There were four of them, each with a weapon. If she was in top condition with a weapon on her own she would be able to take them by herself. Probably. She was easily better than each of them individually but four on one was quite a disadvantage. That would be the case if she was ready. Right now her weapon was in the locker, her aura was barely above half and she was slightly tired. But she wouldn't just stand here and take it. She brought her fists up in a classic boxing stance as they half encircled her.

"Hey! What are you doing!?"

Shit! Don't get involved sis!

"Hey, look, it's the squirt!"

"Didn't teach say that the two of them were sisters?"

Yang didn't listen to them anymore. She crabbed the one nearest to her and threw him at the other three to slow them down. While they were stumbling and helping the fallen one back on his feet, Yang took a protective stance in front of Ruby. The first one lunged with a halberd, followed up by his friend with a battleaxe. She was ready to face them head on when Ruby spoke up quietly from behind her.

O fable come to life

Let the wolves howl, let the petals dance

It felt weird. She felt heavier. It was like the protective bubble of aura was being forced back.

Screee-

"What the-?! Ack!"

"AAAh. Shit, let go!"

Two large streams of petals went around her, both as thick as tree trunks. From the inside she heard the most unholiest sound ever. A mix of high pitched buzzing and what sounded like clashing of countless blades. She looked back. Ruby was standing in a growing pool of bright red petals, seemingly shedding from her cape. From this pool two giant tentacles made out of the same rose petals had risen and currently were hanging in the air.

Everything went terribly wrong for the boys. What was meant to be their lesson for the teacher's pet turned into a scene from a horror movie. Some little girl just summoned bloodred grimm on a whim and instead of just biting there was a bloody meat grinder inside. Sven's axe became only a handle, the rest of it was slowly settling on the ground in the form of small splinters and several pieces of very twisted metal. Johnny got it worse. The hellspawn lunged at his arm. His aura flared up and tried to protect it's bearer. For all of two seconds. His clothes were torn apart and there were a multitude of scratches going from his hand up to the shoulder. Freaking grinder inside spit out a large amount of iron dust. Right, it swallowed the halberd before starting on the arm. The two floating beowolf heads were currently only watching them, a monotonous hum being produced somewhere within. Only reason why they even thought they were being watched was because each head had two silvery grey petals in place where a normal beowolf would have had eyes. With two of them being disarmed and facing something so alien to them they did the only sensible thing and ran away.

-BBW-

Even after they got home Yang was still in shock. Tai called them and told them that he will come later because apparently someone summoned grimm on the school grounds. Yang knew what it was about but nothing would ever come out of it anyway. Who would believe that her little sister could do something like that, her semblance was speed, not creating swarms of petals to use as a weapon.

Ruby was also in a bit of a shock. Less so than Yang but it wasn't that hard right now. She just reaffirmed that going all out against Yang would be a mistake. She just wanted to stop them, maybe scare them a bit to leave Yang alone. Instead she almost tore someone's arm off.

Yang didn't drink tea often but right now it was the best thing to calm down. She made herself a cup of green one and went to Ruby's workshop. Her sister already went to work on her weapon but that would have to wait.

"Hey Rubes, can we talk for a sec?" Yang asked, unsure where to even begin.

Ruby put the screwdriver down and looked up, although she did try to avoid eye contact. "Sure"

Okay, Yang, you are strong, smart and responsible. Just like a bandaid so we can deal with this.

"Good, good… what the hell was that?" She tried to be calm but if Ruby's strained expression was of any indication she failed.

"Well.. it was my semblance."

"Bullshit! I know what your semblance is! It's the whole dashing around while leaving rose petals all over the place! Not whatever you did!" Yang wouldn't let it go, she needed to know what happened.

"But it was! Just used a bit differently."

Okay, whatever, let's try from a different angle.

"What was that with the words? The whole thing about fables and wolves?"

"Ugh..that… I don't really know." Ruby awkwardly tried to give her an answer.

"What do you mean you don't know? You did it and you don't even know what you did?"

"It's like… it kinda just felt right? It's like whenever I say them my semblance becomes so much easier to use!"

"Ruby! You can't read a comic, see the main character shout out their attack, and then use it in the real world! It just doesn't work like that!" Yang was getting very frustrated. "And what do you mean whenever you say them? Do you, like, run around summoning petal grimm or what?"

"I did it a few times when I went off to hunt some grimm. I'm trying to figure out what's going on but… yeah, it's a bit weird but it works!"

Great… my sister is developing actual superpowers…

"Fine… just… be careful with it, okay?"

Ruby gave her a determined nod and accepting the questioning over, went back to her previous work.

-BBW-

Yang entered her room and unceremoniously crashed onto her bed. Bloody hell… how am I supposed to be a good big sis and protect her when she can just bullshit her way through anything with a few magic words…

A stray thought entered Yang's mind. Ruby said she had a weird dream for some time and collected a lot of books about aura. Some of them actually scientific but most of them some strange metaphysical stuff about meditation, self-understanding and what not. She picked up her scroll and typed in 'aura what the right word is… inclin- incantation! incantation'. It took her some time to find anything remotely useful, most of the results being about the mantras used to unlock someone's aura. Then she stumbled on the story about a hermit from Vacuo, whose semblance allowed him some control over wind.

'- despite scientific consensus the story is still a local legend in southern Vacuo. The hermit lived in a cave near a small village. The villagers would bring him food and he would protect them from grimm and teach their fighters how to better themselves. The training involved long meditations and searching for one's purpose. The goal of the training was for each person to create a short poem about themselves, thus reaching the understanding of who they really are. Reciting the poem before battle was supposed to allow them to free their souls and use their true power. None of it was ever confirmed and no one was able to replicate the feat. The story of a hermit ends with a giant wave of grimm approaching the village. Shortly before the grimm would have attacked a giant sandstorm appeared on the hill where hermit's cave was located. The storm crashed into the grimm and raged for hours. When it ended, both the grimm and the hermit were gone with the wind.'

That… hits rather close. Yang finally had at least some lead towards what was happening with her sister. And it did make some sense. Ruby was always very driven when it came to being a huntress. It was pretty much the only thing she was able to focus on. And apparently her very soul was answering this call to arms.

The sun had hidden behind the horizon but the last rays of light still illuminated Yang's room as she pondered what it all meant for her and Ruby. Heh… she will definitely take the title of the best huntress if what happened today was just the beginning. Damn, need to train harder to keep up! Okay, so, how do I do it? Yang started to pace around her room, thinking about what made her the person she was. After she made the fifth round she stopped in front of the window and looked outside. Am I that shallow? She weakly punched the wall. I want to go on adventures! I want to find Raven! I want to keep Ruby safe! Power of the soul my ass! How am I supposed to keep up with Rubes?!

If I can't keep up…

Will she leave me behind?

Her semblance flared up.

What are adventures? I'm already going to be a huntress, the whole thing will be a wild ride.

Her red eyes looked to the horizon.

Screw Raven! If she couldn't be bothered to at least try to be here then she can suck it!

Her hands balled into fists.

Uncle Qrow is always away getting drunk on missions.

Tai…dad… I forgive you for not taking care of us. But I will remember.

Ruby. You were always there. Dumb antics with my little sister. Our first adventures.

I won't let you leave me behind!

When you become the greatest huntress I will be there. I will hand the title to you if need be.

Think I can't keep up with you little sis?

It's you who will need to keep up!

I, who shall awaken

As the last rays of sunlight vanished Yang blinked and saw a vast plain covered in smoke and ash. This will do, one day, I will ignite it all!