4

Chapter 4: A Black and Red Dork, Sitting in a TreeSummary:

Ruby and Jaune plan out their next moves, meanwhile Ruby realizes she's being followed.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The days after initiation were spent getting acclimated to the routine of being a student again. RWBY and JNPR attended classes, ate their meals together (as much as their schedules allowed), and generally spent as much time together as possible, all facilitated by Ruby and Jaune of course.

At the end of their first week of classes, the team leaders convinced their teammates to have a board game night in celebration. The duo had planned it in advance and while Ruby did have to gently convince Jaune that "Compost King" was in fact not the best board game for them to play, their plan went off without a hitch!

Ruby had grabbed a bunch of games from the library, and rushed over to the common room they were taking over for the night. When she got there, she found Yang and Nora talking animatedly while their partners sat on either side, each silently glad their partners' energies were being directed at someone else.

Ruby bet 50 lien that they would be arm wrestling by the end of the night. Blake sat quietly in the opposite corner of the table, pretending to read a book while sneaking glances at her teammates. Ruby sat down her large stack of games in the middle and pulled out 'Remnant the Game'. As she busied herself with setting up the pieces and players, Blake put her book down and silently moved to help Ruby.

"Thanks." Ruby smiled at her partner, who nodded in return. By the time they had finished setting up the admittedly complex game, Pyrrha had snuck in and taken her place next to Weiss, and Jaune sat next to Pyrrha.

"Okay guys! Who here hasn't played Remnant the Game before?" Ruby asked, calling everyone to order. Several hands shot up. Ruby explained the rules to the four-player game, and looked around at the eight players in the room. "So uh- form teams of two everyone!" She concluded.

"How are we supposed to choose teams?" Ren asked.

"Doesn't matter, cause you're on mine!" Nora responded.

"Why don't we just play with our partners?" Pyrrha said.

"Great idea, Pyrrha!" Weiss said emphatically. Perhaps a bit too emphatically, given that Jaune, Ruby, and Yang were all staring at her. "What?"

"Weiss, you are as transparent as your namesake." Yang said while laughing.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss retorted, fighting a blush. Yang moved a hand to her shoulder to calm her down.

"Nothing, Weiss-y. Nothing. C'mon, let's grab our cards." Weiss pouted but said nothing else.

Ruby drew her cards and stealthily showed them to Blake. Well, she thought it was stealthy, but when Blake gently guided her hands so that Nora couldn't peak, Ruby realized that she wasn't the best at this.

"Do, uh, do you want to hold the cards instead?" Ruby asked her partner, who shook her head.

"You're better suited to the responsibility." She replied cryptically. At least this was one responsibility she could handle, unlike everything else that was to come. Bleeding cards was the least of her worries when the entire school could be destroyed.

---

While team bonding was important, there were more pressing concerns for both team leaders. Before initiation they had agreed that after their teams were back, it was time to really buckle down. They had gotten their teams and partners back (mostly) and now it was time push ahead. They reserved one of the empty classrooms the next day. No one was going to wander in on a Saturday.

Ruby had picked up her notebook after training and couple pizzas from the cafeteria in preparation and went to meet Jaune. The residential side of campus was bustling, students were out and about enjoying the pleasant weather, organizing in groups to head down to the city, or relaxing in other ways. As Ruby passed the cafeteria, she noticed a small group had gathered to cheer on a girl who was using her semblance to effortlessly balance on top of a flagpole using one hand.

As she neared the academic buildings, the foot traffic, predictably, dwindled. Ruby entered one of the bigger lecture halls, meant for large groups of first and second year students to have their general courses together in. Jaune was already at the front, cleaning the blackboards which they were sure to fill with all of their ideas over the course of the evening.

Ruby called out and waved to her friend. "Hey Jaune! I brought food!" She set down the two pizzas and opened their boxes.

"Oh thank the brothers. Oobleck had me staying late and I didn't get a chance to eat." Jaune grabbed a slice and started devouring it.

"Heh. Good to see some things haven't changed." Ruby teased. Jaune shrugged.

"He can fail me if he wants, as long as we save Beacon."

"Then let's get to it! First step to saving the world!" Ruby grabbed a piece of pizza as Jaune was already wolfing down his second, then she got down to business.

"I think our most pressing concern is the fight at the docks. It's the next time any of us encountered anyone associated with Cinder. We'll have all semester to train our teams to get them ready, and that will be our first chance to change things if we want." Jaune grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote 'DOCKS ROBBERY' in big letters on the blackboard.

Ruby agreed with Jaune. She was going to devise a training schedule that would make even Weiss cringe. It would take months of intense training to get them back where they were, but the fact that she knew what her team should look like helped immensely.

"Between when I saw him at the dust shop and the docks, I didn't pay much attention to Torchwick. I think he was robbing other stores, but I don't know which ones or when. Going after him before the docks would be really time consuming.

"We were able to stop him the first time without too much trouble." Penny had really done most of the stopping for them, but their teams were more than capable too, especially if they all showed up. Ruby made a mental note to circle back to Penny later on. "I think this time we should try to capture him. If we can capture him, Cinder can't use him for the Breach, or as her ally with the White Fang." Ruby argued. Jaune considered the idea and furrowed his brow.

"That might not be good for us… If we did capture Torchwick, we would lose our knowledge advantage. Cinder would have to send someone else to cooperate with the White Fang, and to the Breach. We wouldn't be able to rely on those events happening the same way anymore."

That did make sense. Stopping the breach was way more important than stopping a dust robbery at the docks. There would be lots of other opportunities to catch him.

"Okay, I see your point… But we have to stop him from stealing any dust. He's using it to build bombs. Stopping the grimm from invading downtown Vale during the Breach has to be a top priority for us."

"Agreed. Stopping the Breach will go a long way towards stopping the Fall of Beacon. During the docks robbery, we stop Torchwick from getting any more dust to use for it. We can work out the details after our team's styles gel a bit more." Jaune replied. Ruby nodded in agreement.

As long as they made sure Torchwick didn't get any more dust, they could use the time to test out their teams and see how their training paid off. Underneath their docks robbery header, Jaune wrote 'stop dust from being stolen.'

Ruby hopped up off the desk she had been sitting on and grabbed a piece of chalk. She made another header labeled 'TORCHWICK.'

"Capturing Torchwick still needs be a priority at some point. The breach must have taken long time to plan, they can't easily move all that equipment anywhere else. Plus, their plan doesn't even work if they relocate. If we grab Torchwick, we can still stop the White Fang from causing the breach."

"When do you think would be best?" Jaune asked.

Ruby had mulled over a few possibilities. The docks fight was the earliest option, but Jaune rightly pointed out they lost their advantage that way. The White Fang rally was the next time Torchwick would be out in the open, but trying to catch him then would be really hard with all those people around, especially when Neo was in the mix. If they could bring in multiple teams to stop the breach, it would be possible to just capture him there again, while simultaneously stopping the breach. But that was the absolute latest it could be, any time after that risked him getting involved with the Fall of Beacon.

"Right before the breach is supposed to happen. I discovered it early, but I think it was supposed to happen when Beacon fell. We'll bring lots of hunters to both simultaneously stop the train from breaking into downtown Vale and apprehend Torchwick." Ruby wrote 'capture and stop breach at the same time' under Torchwick's label.

"Do you think we should involve other teams for this plan or just ours?" Jaune asked.

"Whoever else we can get." Ruby answered.

Jaune grabbed another piece of pizza before coming up to the blackboard. "That just leaves another big problem." 'WHITE FANG' got its own header.

Ruby really didn't know what to do about the White Fang. Stopping them from attacking Beacon would be important, but how they could do that, Ruby had no idea. She really had next to no experience with them, and from what she remembered Jaune had even less.

Ruby exhaled loudly. "I don't know how we deal with them. I want to ask Blake about it, but you know, whole time travel thing makes that kinda hard."

"Yeah… she's going to want to stop them on her own right? Maybe we let her take the lead, and support her however we can?" Jaune asked.

It was as good a plan as any. Blake would know what should be done way better than either of them ever could. Ruby nodded to Jaune and put 'follow Blake's lead' on the board.

"Ugh, speaking of my new partner, I need to figure out how to make her open up before she and Weiss start arguing."

Jaune rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Do you- do you want to talk about that?"

"Talk about what?" Ruby asked.

"That Blake is your new partner. It's- I know it wasn't what you wanted, and I know that you and Weiss were… close." Jaune put extra emphasis on the word. "I just- wanted to make sure you were okay."

Ruby smiled up at Jaune. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't upset me. That I didn't miss her every day. All of them. But we're still team RWBY, and that gives me so much hope that we can do this."

Jaune put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "I'm glad you're doing okay." Ruby smiled and turned back to the blackboard. Dwelling on it wouldn't help anything. The best she could do right now was try to stop the strife that Weiss was going to introduce once she learned about Blake.

"Trying to force Blake to come out as a Faunus isn't going to go well. I think just hanging out with her, and making sure she knows we won't judge her will be for the best. Oh, and I can try to steer Weiss away from those ideas that her dad put in her head." Emphasis on try. Weiss could be… stubborn.

With all the near term threats addressed, that left only the big picture things to deal with. There was one that Ruby had been particularly dreading. 'OZPIN' went up on the board. "He's not going to trust us or what we have to say." Ruby said.

Jaune nodded. "Yeah. If he's suspicious of us, that could make whatever we plan a lot harder. We need him to trust us. How do we do that?"

 Ruby had been thinking that one over quite a bit. She really didn't know Ozpin that well, not like she knew Oscar. But from what she did know, if Ozpin learned what happened in the future, he might just have a mental breakdown, knowing that in the end all he did was for nothing and that humanity couldn't be saved. The Gods were always going to rule against humanity and here Ozpin had spent his lifetime, countless lifetimes trying to save it.

"Hmm… Ozpin was watching my team originally. We can use that. Besides, he's probably doubly vigilant since I used my eyes during initiation-"

"Wait, hold on. You used your silver eyes during initiation??" Oops. Apparently Ruby had forgotten to fill Jaune in on that part.

"Oh! Heh, yeah… it wasn't on purpose I just got spooked and well- poof!"

Jaune blinked a couple of times. "Well that makes getting his attention easier. He's going to be watching your every move. We can take advantage of that, use our knowledge to be in the right place at the right time to confront grimm and Cinder wherever possible."

"Hey yeah! If he sees us fighting them all the time, he will at least realize we can be useful for fighting Salem!" See, this is why it was always better to have two people for these things.

Ruby wrote 'show we can be trustworthy by fighting grimm and Salem whenever possible' under Ozpin's header. "Speaking of Ozpin though… what are we going to do about Oscar?"

"Oh! I have an idea for this one! We can go camping!"

Ruby stared at Jaune and tilted her head. How would that help anything…?

"No, seriously! My family went camping to Shion every year! It's not that far from where Oscar lives. At the end of the semester, we can go and visit him!"

"You know where Oscar lives?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah! He told me when we were in Atlas." Jaune puffed out his chest.

"Huh, okay! So, what are we gonna say to him?"

"That, I- don't know." He deflated almost immediately. Ruby snickered at the display.

It was still better than nothing, and they couldn't just leave Oscar out of all of this. Besides the fact that he was still one of her best friends, he was also deeply involved. If Ozpin didn't survive, Oscar was going to have to entangle himself in all of this anyway. It was best to get him started early then. If Ozpin did survive, Ruby would still be happy to have another one of her friends back.

"We can think of what to tell him later." Jaune decided. Ruby was inclined to agree.

The pair had finished the first pizza Ruby had brought, and while Jaune was slowing down, Ruby was still hungry. She opened the second box and grabbed a large piece, folding it in half and stuffing it in her mouth.

"That's everyone from the school. What's next?" Ruby said in between bites. Weiss would probably give her a bad time for talking with her mouth full. Jaune looked to the board. 'CINDER' took its place over by 'WHITE FANG' and 'TORCHWICK'.

Cinder. The name still made her nervous. She thought that Cinder was going to kill her on more than one occasion, and she almost did—also on more than one occasion. The only upside was that Cinder wasn't in flaming annihilation mode when she came to Beacon. No, she was still in sneaky-sneak mode.

Fortunately for Beacon, sneaky-sneak mode didn't work as well when others knew you were sneaky-sneaking!

"We can get through to her, while she's at Beacon. She ordered Emerald and Mercury to spy on us. If we treat that friendship seriously, we could convince her that Salem is just using her, and stop her from trying to attack us." Ruby said. She really wanted to be optimistic about Cinder. The girl was just being used by Salem, and once she was no longer useful Salem just tossed her aside.

Jaune looked at Ruby skeptically. "I don't think we can do that. Cinder isn't going to listen to us, and if we even breathe a mention of Salem, things will be ten times worse for us." Jaune paused to collect his thoughts. "I'm not willing to bet Pyrrha's safety on whether or not we can befriend our worst enemy before the Vytal Festival."

Ruby looked over at the second empty pizza box longingly. She should've gotten a third pizza, but they wouldn't let her. Sighhh. Yeah, alright, she knew that trying to befriend Cinder here at Beacon was crazy, and dangerous. Jaune was right, but still. Cinder didn't deserve what happened to her. No one deserved that.

"We can still try to plant a seed of doubt. Say something, tell her something that makes her question Salem." Ruby protested.

"If you can think of something, go for it." Jaune acquiesced. "The way I see it: Ozpin needs to arrest Cinder. By the time she shows up, we should have enough of his trust to make him wary of her. Then, we can catch Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury in their lies about their semblances. Their Haven files documented their semblances, and if we can show they're forgeries, that's enough to get Ozpin to act."

It was a good plan. It wasn't surprising that Jaune had come up with it, Cinder always was one of the people he wanted to be forced to be held accountable for Pyrrha's death. He never talked about how she would be made to pay, but Ruby didn't doubt for a second his resolve to ensure that Cinder could not be allowed to harm Pyrrha again.

"That works." Ruby wrote 'expose their semblances' on the board and drew two connected headers, forming a triangle with Cinder's: 'EMERALD' and 'MERCURY'. "I know we can't befriend Cinder, but Emerald we can. Oscar was closer with her, but from what I could tell she followed Cinder because she was the only person who cared about Emerald. If we honestly befriend her, we can show her that what she and Cinder have isn't friendship."

Jaune nodded. "There's only one of you though. We should try to integrate her with our teams. Ren and Nora could get along with her really well. If she connects with them, she might even tell them something useful." Ruby happily marked Emerald as 'befriend'.

That just left the final member of the triad, Mercury. He had saved her life in Vacuo, and become something of a constant shadow of hers throughout her time in the desert. She once teasingly asked him if he didn't trust her enough to watch her own back. He had replied cryptically: 'on the contrary, you're the only one I do trust anymore.'

If Ruby had known that this would happen, she would've spent more time getting to know him. She was kind of busy trying to stop the apocalypse though, so that should excuse her! Still, that meant she was kind of starting from scratch.

Jaune looked at the final label and stared at Ruby expectantly. He probably expected that since Mercury had attached himself to Ruby after switching sides that she would know something he didn't. Ruby just shook her head. "Mercury never really said anything to me. He just- always protected me, from Tyrian, from the grimm, from anything. It was…" Ruby trailed off.

It was a very strange experience. What did she do to provoke that response in him? She could try to replicate that. For now, she just placed one big '?' below his label.

That just left one last member of Cinder's crew. 'NEOPOLITAN' took its place right next to Torchwick's label. Ruby didn't consider herself superstitious, but after learning the consequences of separating the two firsthand over the course of several years, she wasn't going to take chances; even if they were just names on a whiteboard.

"Neo is intensely loyal to Torchwick. If we never threaten him, she'll never have a reason to go after you." Jaune said. Ruby nodded. If they never poked Torchwick with a stick, Neo wouldn't ever (metaphorically) roar in response.

Ruby put down her chalk and looked at the board. They had entirely covered one side in notes and diagrams, connecting this label to that plan and back again. Still, this wasn't even scratching the surface of all the problems they needed to fix. Ruby stretched her arms above her head.

Believe it or not, these were the easy problems they were looking at. They would need to figure out what to do about the literal maiden below the school. With a tired sigh, Ruby put 'AMBER' on the board. Jaune's expression grew tense.

"We're not making Pyrrha a maiden." He said tersely.

"Amber won't survive. We need to do something-"

"Pyrrha didn't have a choice. She didn't know what was going to happen her, Ozpin and all of them cornered her and knew that she would never say no! We can't force that onto her again." Jaune didn't even stop for breath. "She was just starting to feel like herself, the her she always wanted to be, a part of her team. We- I won't let her second chance at life go to waste." Jaune ran out of steam and hung his head. "She suffered enough."

Ruby walked over to Jaune and stood in front of him. She reached out her arms and enveloped Jaune in a hug. He hugged her back and whispered, "I can't fail her again. She deserves so much better."

"You won't, Jaune. You won't." Ruby let Jaune slowly calm down. She broke the hug and sat by him once he got his breathing back under control. "There's someone else who could take her place." Ruby really didn't want to voice this, but she had thought of it back on Patch. She hadn't even written it down, but she knew immediately it was the best option possible. Time to circle back to her: "Penny could be the maiden instead."

Pietro could manipulate Penny's aura in order to make room for Amber, making the transition more comfortable for them both. She could inherit the power, and she was already combat ready. She was equally as good a fighter as Pyrrha. If- if the worst did happen, she could be rebuilt. Ruby shuddered thinking of her friend that way, but it was true.

Part of her was upset that she would ever even consider making her friend a maiden again. Penny had never wanted the role to begin with, and now Ruby was trying to decide it for her, again. It wouldn't be fair for her, again. But Ruby would be with her every step of the way. Hopefully that would help make up for how unfair it all was.

"Are you okay with Penny becoming a maiden again?" Jaune asked. He looked concerned. Ruby answered honestly.

"Not really… but she is the best candidate. She can handle the power." Ruby turned to face the board. "It's not a problem we can ignore forever. Ozpin waited too long and Beacon fell. It's a risk we have to take, even if it's unfair."

It would also give a reason for Penny to stay at Beacon- if that was what she wanted. Jaune joined Ruby in staring at the board, he held a notebook and busily started copying down the diagram they had made. Ruby would do the same too, once she was satisfied with it. They couldn't just leave it here, and it wasn't safe to take a picture of. If Watts had already infiltrated Beacon's network, leaving digital evidence of their knowledge was a big no-no.

"This gives us a good start." Jaune said. "But we'll have to stay flexible. There's no telling how things change once we start doing things differently. Right now, our two short-term goals are to stop the docks fight, and gain Ozpin's trust."

"That covers it. Our overall goal is to try and confront Salem and her forces whenever and wherever possible in order to get in Ozpin's good graces as fast as possible." Ruby responded. If she was trying to boil down the essence of their plan into a single sentence, that was it. They needed Ozpin's cooperation.

The task ahead was monumental, but they had their goals, and would take things one step at a time. Together, Ruby was confident that they could do this.

---

By the time Ruby bid goodnight to Jaune it was already getting dark. They had made good progress! Ruby enjoyed the fall breeze as it whisked through the foliage. Just getting to walk around Beacon was still such a novel experience. The school was exactly as she remembered, she knew so many little nooks and crannies and little secrets.

Ruby was in no rush to get back, and decided to take a longer way back, looping around the grounds instead of going directly to the dorm. On nights like this she used to love wearing her headphones, listening to songs and just getting lost in the ambiance. No one was even around during this hour, and she had the entire side of campus to herself.

Unfortunately, that ended when Beacon fell. Ever since, Ruby found she couldn't relax with her headphones on. She was always worried she wouldn't hear the sound that would alert her to a grimm attack, or to one of Salem's henchmen, or one of her other enemies. Situational awareness had to be maintained at all times, looking for both obvious and obscure threats.

Fortunately, due to that obsessive need, Ruby heard the fact that when her footsteps stopped, the sound didn't until a split second later. She felt the need to turn around and confront whoever was following her, but Ruby took a moment to reminded herself that no one at Beacon was out to get her.

Still, she stayed quiet for a minute, waiting to see if she could hear anything else. When nothing peaked her interest, she moved on. Her pace was more deliberate now and her mind sharp. No more whimsical trips down memory lane.

She stopped several more times, but heard nothing. Her instincts still told her that something was wrong. She couldn't explain it, but she was being watched. Someone, or something, was following her. Ruby altered her route in order to catch whoever was following her.

As Ruby got close to her destination, she turned a corner and quickly let her semblance whisk her up into a nearby tree. People always forgot to look up when they were searching for someone. She stayed as still as she could, and waited to see if someone would turn the corner looking for her. She was just about to dismiss it all as paranoia when finally, someone did turn the corner- and looked straight at her.

"Ruby?" Blake sounded confused. "What are you doing up there?" So much for her perfect hiding spot. Blake's night vision probably cut right through it. To her, she just looked like a black and red dork sitting in a tree.

Ruby gave a surprised yelp and tried to make a dignified exit from her tree. She landed face first on the ground instead. "Owwowow…." Ruby rubbed her head. Blake stood over her, concerned.

"Were you following me?" Ruby asked. She wasn't trying to chastise her teammate but she was curious. Blake immediately looked surprised before she looked away, ashamed. So she was the one Ruby had heard.

"I… didn't mean to. It was getting late and you weren't back yet. I wondered around and just happened to see you." Aww, so she was concerned about her, that's cute! Ruby thought to herself.

It wasn't like this was the first time Blake had snuck around. She was always curious, and always trying to find out whatever she could. It was one of the many things that made her a great teammate, but also just another trait that marked her as different from her teammates.

Ruby smiled up at her partner. "Thanks for looking out for me." Blake noticeably relaxed as she helped Ruby up.

"You're welcome." She said, but her posture was still guarded. "Ruby… what happened in the forest, I- I don't think you were supposed to do that."

Well, that comment certainly got Ruby's full attention. "What do you mean…?" She asked.

"Your sister told me about your semblance, and it's not your eyes. She doesn't know anything about them. Beacon's library has nothing- next to nothing. There's some stories, but nothing real. There are no credible accounts and a handful of rumors of what happened to those who had silver eyes, none of it good." Blake had been doing her research. Ruby should've known that Blake wouldn't simply just ignore what she saw forever. "What I'm saying is- I think you might be in danger."

Realization dawned on Ruby. So that's why Blake was following her. Ruby had to try her hardest not to break her composure though. She had been in danger from the moment she entered Beacon all those years ago, they all had. But Blake was just stumbling into all of this for the first time.

"I don't know much more than you do about my eyes. Ozpin commented on them the night we met. Can… can you keep what you saw in the forest a secret?" Blake nodded and Ruby breathed a sigh of relief.

The two walked back to their dorms together. Ruby normally felt the need to fill the silence with something, but after scheming with Jaune and then being worried that she was being followed, she was liable to fall asleep right here. Surprisingly, it was Blake who broke the silence.

"You're not… upset, that I followed you?" She asked. Ruby shook her head.

"It's your job to know these ninja things." She responded sleepily. It was something that she had told Blake the first time around, and from then on, Blake hadn't ever felt any shame for following anyone around, even her own teammates.

If Ruby had been more awake, perhaps she would've noticed the utter shock on Blake's face from the comment.

Once Ruby got back to her dorm, she wasted no time before heading to bed. A productive sleep to end a productive day. Well, so long as she didn't have any bad dreams like she had nearly every night for years.

Fine. A somewhat productive sleep to end a productive day.

Notes:

Ta-da! Chapter 4!!

This was the first chapter I was concerned wasn't going to be done in time but here we are, another Sunday, another chapter!!!

I thought about making a graphic to accompany this chapter, the diagram that Ruby and Jaune created on the blackboard, but then this chapter grew to be the longest chapter so far and it's already Sunday evening so NOPE.

Anywho, thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next week!

(Oh no, now I've committed to getting another chapter in next week. We'll see how long I can keep this up.)