9

Entire freakin' week! Even if the spar ended in twenty seconds, Yang was still really happy to be able to do something. Her burns were gone after two days, her skin stopped being extremely sensitive after another one and Ruby had a new weapon ready by day five. Apparently her little sister wanted to make it as her birthday present for her fifteenth birthday but then decided to make it early as a replacement, pushing her own projects to a later date and making a massive mess around the house as she kept throwing random parts out of the garage. It looked almost the same, it worked the same way and somehow weighted less while being as durable. And of course it had a manual thirty pages thick attached to it. Half of it being about the supposed shockwave function. Yang tested it out the same day. Then immediately decided to never use it again. Instead of shockwave, it sent out an air bullet and if it was combined with the fire her semblance was making it would always be an overkill. That was the only time she had an actual conversation with her sister this week. Ruby was still determined to find a way to help Yang with her not having enough energy to power her semblance. She would stay in the library until the closing hour and then lock herself up in her workshop. Yang was rather worried about her but so far she had always come to sleep indoors and ate properly. Yang herself started to study something else. Right now she was in her room surrounded by old historical literature, legends and myths, fairy tales for children and a small amount of conspirology magazines. Now that she came face first with actual magic, she would find everything she could about it. Slowly she was making a spreadsheet about the most popular ones. Sometimes different stories would be almost similar so she just assumed them to be the same thing, just in a different time and place. Funnily enough, the majority of the stories was compiled and penned by Oswald Greenday.

"I figured it out!" The door into her room almost flew off the hinges when a red cloud charged inside. It solidified and now her sister stood in the middle of the room with a rather thick book in her hands.

"Dammit Rubes! Give me a warning next time!" Yang shouted as she desperately clung to her spreadsheet, lest it be blown away. After securing it on the table and calming down, she turned to her sister who was almost jumping in place with excitement. "Now, come on, spill."

She opened her book and started going through the bookmarks. On the title it read 'Dust utilization and automatization' by A. Watts. Near the end of the book she finally stopped and presented Yang with the highlighted text.

'-main problem with automated application of dust lies with the necessity of human involvement. While it is possible to unleash the energy stored within by chemical or physical reaction, the efficiency of this process would be always far inferior to the one created by a proficient dust caster. It stems from the fact that while dust is activated by application of aura, during the process aura becomes a conduit to the energy stored within. That is the truth I and my colleagues had to accept during the development of Atlesian knights.'

Yang read through the text but couldn't understand what point her sister was trying to make. "Can you tell me what you figured out in… my language?"

"Ugh, well, it's like that. We take some fire dust and you activate it but instead of throwing fireballs and stuff, you keep it bound to your aura." Ruby fumbled with the explanation.

"That sounds like a perfect way to set myself on fire." Yang remarked with a deadpan.

"Naaaah, you will be fine. Your semblance makes fire anyway so we just add some to it! You said you didn't have enough power to keep your semblance going so you will use some fire dust as fuel!" She then took a small case strapped on her waist and opened it. Inside were five fire dust crystals, fully isolated from one another.

Yang looked at the small crystals, two of which would be enough to blow up their entire house. "Ruby… how did you get that?" She wasn't worried about her sister stealing, she would never do that, but if there was some idiot who would sell full dust crystals to a twelve year old…

"I bought them. There was a sale in the warehouse with old weapons. Anything for a thousand. It was dirt cheap!" Ruby proclaimed proudly.

"And are you sure these were actually for sale?"

Ruby stopped bouncing for a moment and started to grow pale. "Oh brothers! I just took them, left the money and sped off! I'm a criminal now! I won't be able to become huntress! And-"

Yang flicked Ruby in the forehead. "What happened, happened, deal with it." She then looked at the crystals again. "So, let me get this straight, you blew off your allowance to buy dust just to give it to me so I can set myself on fire again?"

Ruby thought about it for a few seconds and then shyly nodded.

"Well, no time to waste. Let me change into something expendable."

-BBW-

They had walked quite some distance. Both of them had noticed that after their bout a week ago some people started to look into it. Usually Patch would have one or two huntsmen on stand-by in case of emergencies like a big sea grimm showing up. Last week there were almost a dozen of them going around the island and especially around the cliffside they destroyed. So instead of going deep into the forest and risking running into one of them, they chose to hide right under everyone's noses and went to the Signal hunting ground. In its farthest point there was a circular rock formation made by the staff to observe how many grimm were inside and to thin it out if necessary. Due to the island having a major grimm shortage the place wasn't visited for some time and it would most likely remain so for the foreseeable future.

Yang clutched the dust crystals in her hands, one in each. Ruby sat on one of the rocks and was slowly covering all the surrounding trees in a layer of rose petals. Neither of them wanted to be the cause of yet another forest fire. Yang was slightly apprehensive of the whole idea. She did want to be able to stay with Ruby during their hunting career and for that she needed to get stronger. On the other hand, most of Ruby's first time experiments tended to break apart and possibly explode. Considering how much fire she could make on her own… Welp, at least I'll go down in history as the first Signal student to burn it down!

She was ready. Yang locked eyes with Ruby and both nodded. So they began.

I, who shall awaken / O fable come to life

They would do this together.

Golden dragon who devoured the flames of the sun / Let the wolves howl, let the petals dance

One to prove that she could go the distance and the other to intervene in case something went wrong.

Soar to the edge of the world / To save the men, to slay the beast

Ruby also made a dome over them, it wouldn't do them any good if somebody saw a giant fire in the middle of the forest.

Banish the darkness / Be virtuous

It felt like she submerged her hands into freezing water. She almost forgot what it felt like. Yang quickly looked down at her hands in mild panic. She saw the dust crystals shine like two car's headlights while also spewing out fire that was covering her hands and was climbing to her elbows. It's definitely doing something… Yang thought in a mix of confusion and fascination. When the fire started going past her elbows she made up her mind. Now or never! She closed her eyes shut and…

Usher the inferno / Be righteous

She was cold again. But she wasn't tired. It didn't feel like the world around her was falling apart. Slowly the red eyes opened to see Ruby's mouth fall open in wonder. She looked down at herself. Now, instead of just her arms, the flames were covering her entire body. She could almost feel the somehow cold flames being syphoned into her body. She looked back at her sister and gave her a beaming smile, one that she excitedly mirrored.

-BBW-

"Yang, we… might have a problem." Ruby awkwardly started. Yang took her sweet time playing around with fire. Even asked if they should continue their unfinished spar. Yeah right… that would go down just great for everyone involved. Finally Yang powered down and… her decision to wear something she wouldn't miss was the right one.

"Huh? Is somebody coming?!" Yang started to look around, still in a bit of a daze from joy and the insane amount of adrenaline going through her.

"Ehm no, but your clothes!" Ruby whisper-screamed. Now that Yang wasn't putting on fireworks she let her petals be carried away by the east wind further into the forest.

Yang looked down at herself and instead of being embarrassed she just shrugged. "I kinda expected this to happen."

"So you did take spare clothes, right?"

…

…

"I'm somewhat low on clothes with my growth spurs and now burning them…" She murmured weakly.

Ruby, not able to tolerate this level of shamelessness, just swept her arm and her sister was enveloped in a wave of petals. When they fell down, Yang was wearing a skintight suit of interlocked red petals covering her down from her neck. It even had a cape. Capes are cool! "That should do it! Let's go home, I'm tired." And it was getting quite cold, especially after being so close to Yang when she was trying to become an overpowered bonfire. Although she could still feel warmth coming out from her, hopefully she wouldn't set her temporary clothes on fire as well. They stayed in the forest and took a half circle around the settlement. Neither of them wanted to deal with people asking why they were out so late and why Yang was in a skinsuit. Huh? Ruby felt a 'weight' push down on her and started looking around.

"What's the matter, Rubes?" Yang asked after her sister came to a sudden stop.

"Nothing, I just thought I felt something." She still could feel this 'weight' but couldn't understand what was causing it. Then long teeth started closing in on her, her instincts went into overdrive and located the direction. As her uncle always said, when unsure, hunter has to always trust his instincts. With a practiced ease she took aim with her rifle and fired.

-BBW-

Barbeque isn't a winter dish but I doubt anyone will complain. Yang stood over her over-exaggerating sister, really, she was barely holding her tears back, and a corpse of a wild boar that had the lower half of its head missing. I think it's on the tree over there.

"Oh nooo, what have I done…" Ruby moaned over her first actual kill.

"Got us food for half a week."

Ruby just got even louder.

"Come on, at least it wasn't some drunk moron on a night stroll through the forest. Also, nice shot sis, I didn't even know there was anything around us."

Ruby calmed down a bit but looked rather unsure. "I… didn't really know either. I felt like I was about to be chewed on from this direction and I shot and now i-"

"Keep calm Rubes. Nobody is blaming you. Hey, hunting food is almost as important as hunting grimm!" Yang patted her sister on the head. Although shooting on a hunch can be a bad habit to get into… huh, what's this? Yang reached down and picked up a small rose petal from the ground. She might be wrong but..

"What was that?" Ruby started to look around again. For a split-second she felt like she was burning and despite liking to use Yang as a personal heater she didn't want to be on fire.

"Nothing" Yang quickly waved her off while also getting rid of the small amount of ash on her hand. "Let's just go, I will carry this." So she feels through her petals now… great, if this wasn't weird enough.

"Yang, you coming?" Asked Ruby, who was ahead when her sister stopped with a blank expression on her face.

I'm wearing a set of clothes made from her petals

Breathe in, breathe out.

She can feel stuff through her petals

"Yeah I'm coming, just had to readjust the pig."

Am I being felt up by my sister?

-response to dodusk-

Aside from a few minor things, silver eyes will stay close to canon.

As far as powerlvls go… work in progress. With maidens you have to differentiate between the normal ones (Raven/Cinder) and fully realized ones (Fria). I will probably play around with how powerful maidens are. How strong are Ruby and Yang right now… I'd say they are both around the same level as Cinder at the end of vol3. New power, a lot of power and barely any idea how to use it. Still, I most likely will power up the maidens or something like that, so the story doesn't become a dumb power trip.