190

"... Something's different," Ruby muttered, looking around strangely as she unholstered Crescent Rose from her back and readied it into scythe form, hissing quietly at the amount of grimm presence around her. Patch always did have an infestation of grimm for some reason, and no matter how much Ruby tried to find the source pools she never could manage to locate the damn things- not all of them, at least. "Something's changed. Something is…"

"It feels like change is in the wind," Penny nodded just as quickly, Floating Array spinning around behind her back as the two of them walked around through the clearing in the woods, trying to figure out what it was that was so different . It felt like… something was happening. Something big. Something important.

Something… intense.

Neither girl knew what it was exactly, just that something was happening and they had no idea what. It wasn't the presence of the grimm, though that might have been a contributing factor. It wasn't the presence of other people or the mingling of Auras. It was something that neither of them really knew anything about, but they felt it all the same.

"Do you think something's about to happen? I feel like something just sent shivers up my spine," Ruby murmured quietly back at Penny, biting her lip and grimacing ever so slightly as she looked around- then fired a shot into the woods and disintegrated the head of a Beowolf with a single bullet. Not even one of her special ones, just the high strength 50 caliber anti-armor shot that she normally bought from the gun store. Not Mr. Bronze's weapon store, the actual gun store that stocked mostly ammo and a few off the shelf guns with mounting points. "Like. Bad shivers. The kind that's super full of heebie jeebies."

"I felt it as well… there are some old fairy tales about those with spectacularly well trained Auras being able to see the future… perhaps we've simply reached a point of attunement with our Aura training and synchronization that we've become capable of receiving premonitions from the world?" Penny suggested, opening fire at the same time as Ruby began slam firing Crescent Rose into the woods, both of them wreaking havoc on the local Beowolf population as the nightmarish monsters of annihilation tried to run them down and kill them both- to no avail, because both of them were far too good at killing such low level grimm at this point.

Frankly, it was just unfair.

"Maybe… I dunno about that though- why would my Aura mixing with yours give us the ability to tell the future?" Ruby shrugged, continuing to work the bolt of Crescent Rose with one hand and holding down the trigger with the other, pursing her lips even as the retort of her sniper rifle firing cut through the winter stillness in the clearing like a hot knife through butter. Around them, the corpses of grimm began piling up from a mix of Penny's ridiculously high strength, high precision, focused laser shots that drilled neat, coin sized holes through the foreheads of every Beowolf in turn, while Ruby simply haphazardly deleted entire chunks of the poor Beowolves with every single shot and absorbed the dissolving smoke in return.

"I'm not sure, but it might as well happen. We can already sense each other from far away already, and… I believe that we're starting to mix more thoroughly than I could have imagined," Penny mentioned, then paused as she looked down at her hands- lasers still firing on automatic while she and Ruby all but snuggled together while Ruby continued landing picture perfect headshots on the approaching Beowolves without even so much as looking using only one hand. Well… with her normal eyes at least. The grimm eyes on her body were still giving her a full range of vision around her body. "Do you think I have the ability to unlock my Semblance? I don't think I ever did… I'm not sure if I can honestly… it's never come up for my entire life, but…"

"I don't see why not?" Ruby shrugged, nuzzling against the fabric of Penny's cape with a little sigh and giggling a little as the carnage continued around them, an endless horde of night mindless beasts rushing them down without pause only to be cut down in an instant. "I mean, you're a person. You have a soul. And it's not just your father's soul no matter what anyone says- your green and his green are completely different and that means you're unique!"

"Mm… that isn't in doubt now, wishing star… but… there has never been anyone or anything like me before in all of Remnant," Penny shook her head and flexed her Aura slightly, a shimmer of green rippling over her body as she concentrated on trying to feel out that part of her that was unique. A portion of her Aura that had never been touched before- a sense of self that she'd not really ever had the chance to explore . A part of her body that was… just…

Huh.

That was new. 

"Hm? What's new? Oh! That's an interesting feeling…" Ruby murmured, blinking in surprise as she looked down at their conjoined Auras, feeling exactly what Penny was doing and trembling slightly at the sheer warmth pulsing along their connection, gasping as Penny's Aura collected and surged around her throat and…

"... I don't think that did anything," Penny muttered, frowning as her voice emanated from her throat along with a faint, green pulse that echoed into the air. "... Odd… I feel like I should be able to… do something… but I have no idea what it is. But it is draining my Aura slowly to speak like this… Ruby?"

"Huh? Oh… um… Sorry I think I spaced out for a moment there. Just hearing you talk was… hypnotic," Ruby murmured, giggling a little bit as she shook herself from where she'd been almost asleep against Penny's torso and wiggled a little- a faint green haze dissipating from her eyes like a film as she rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Oh! I think that's it! Hypnotizing voice! To put people to sleep! Or something!"

"That does seem to be part of it," Penny nodded, cutting off the flow of Aura to her throat as the little pulses around her mouth and throat ceased altogether. "Though, it doesn't seem to be all of it… could you explain how it felt to hear me speak like that?"

Ruby paused, rubbing her chin as her ears flicked gently atop her head and her tail wagged slowly. "Well… I mean, I don't think there was much different… it's just that, your voice sounded way prettier than normal and it made me wanna cuddle up to you and fall asleep, but I don't think that's entirely what it's supposed to be… like… I wanna do that a lot anyway when we talk really late at night because your voice is super nice and when you talk about stuff quietly it's like a lullaby!"

"Oh! Lullaby! I think that may be it!" Penny popped up cheerfully, hugging Ruby close and grinning as she wiggled around in happiness. "I believe that my Semblance can let me sing people to sleep! Perhaps it also has other effects as well, but we cannot know unless we have a baseline to test it on… hm… should we return home and try it out?"

"Mmm…. maybe? Mmm… it's cozy here with you though…" Ruby huffed, snuggling up against Penny again and letting her entire body fluff up as though every bit of her outfit was lined in fur, nuzzling into Penny's shoulder and luxuriating in her girlfriend's warmth. "I don't wanna go back yet. I wanna cuddle with you foreverrrrrr~!"

"We already do that, beloved," Penny deadpanned flatly, poking Ruby in the cheek, barely acknowledging the fact that the clearing had long since gone silent and that the only sound remaining was the sound of Floating Array slowly sliding back into its protective casings along her outfit, while Ruby sort of blorped Crescent Rose back into her body without noticing… along with the third arm that she'd apparently grown in the process.

Sometimes, Penny forgot just how truly eldritch and terrifying Ruby could be, but then the random growth of a third arm reminded her that her girlfriend was actually an amorphous, artificially created blobby mix of creation and destruction in equal parts. 

Sort of like her, but in a less abstract way than Penny's own miracle of science.

"I knowwwww but I still wanna just like… build an igloo for us and snuggle up inside and nap for a while… napping has gotten so much better since I got out of that crystal, y'know? I still don't need to sleep but I can actually sleep for real now and it's amazing!" Ruby gushed, wiggling around in Penny's arms and nipping gently at her beloved girlfriend's shoulder through the covering fabric. "You're so cozy and warm…"

"As are you, beloved. But we actually should probably head back soon. I believe that it will be lunchtime soon, and we have leftovers to finish," Penny murmured, raising one arm so she could ruffle Ruby's hair and bump their heads together lovingly.

"Mrrr…. Okay… but only because eating leftovers is tasty…"