Ep. 7 - Start of a Story, Start of an Adventure
'Time for the show to start. I should actually catch Torchwick if it isn't too troublesome.' I thought, while on the airship to Vale with Ruby. I decided to wear my armor in the under-armor form (shitty wording, effective method of defence) and take my Hand Cannon ball with me. I set it to 'Thorn' while also activating all perks related to armor piercing. They will work great against Aura users. I looked over to Ruby, who was as happy as ever, humming a song.
Pretty soon, we arrived in Vale. Ruby and I walked calmly towards the shop. Based on the sky there was still some time until the heist, but a big city like Vale means big distances. We arrived at the shop around 20 minutes before dusk. Ruby immediately headed to the bookshelves, while I bought a pack of cookies. Don't know why but the shop has them and Ruby loves them. Oh, I discovered that gold is pretty valuable here as well, so I was right: gold did come in handy and I got some cash. Anyway, I got sidetracked. After a little more than 20 minutes, as I expected, Roman arrived with a dozen or so thugs (read as cannon fodder). I tapped Ruby's arm and gestured towards a nearby mirror. She immediately saw that the new arrivals looked shady as fuck, so she put up her guards while continuing to flip the pages of the magazine she had in hand. A few seconds later, two thugs came and tapped us on our shoulders, trying to intimidate us.
"Just to make sure, you are trying to rob us?" I asked. Already knowing the answer, I coated my fist with Arc Energy, then struck the closest thug in the gut, knocking him out. '1 down, 11 to go.' I took notice of the position of the thugs. Six of them were taking care of the Dust, two were outside the door, keeping watch, two came to me and Ruby and were knocked out. The last two are standing next to Torchwick.
"Uhm… Go get them?" he said, looking exasperated by the incompetence of his cannon fodder thugs. 'A good cannon fodder should at least gain time.' is probably what he is thinking. Another four thugs launched themselves towards us, but were repelled with extreme prejudice. 'Ouch, that must have hurt!' I thought, looking over one the poor guys who was sent flying into a nearby wall. Seeing no other chance, the rest of the thugs rushed at us, wrecking the store, but causing nothing more than a minor inconvenience to me and Ruby.
Torchwick saw that the situation was disastrous and fled. Ruby began chasing him, ending on the same rooftop as canon. I instead checked on the shopkeeper. In canon he was fine but, as demonstrated by the presence of Cayde in my home universe, real life is different. Well, the guy was fine, so I left and blinked onto the rooftop, close to Ruby. There, I saw Torchwick on a Bullhead throwing a Dust crystal towards us. I caught it and quickly stored it. I then took my weapon and fired a few shots at the thing. Not only did the bullets penetrate the Bullhead like a dick penetrates a pornstar, but it also left its usual corrosion, which quickly started corroding the wing.
It melted right off causing the vehicle to crash to the ground, before Glynda even appeared. I ran to the edge of the rooftop to check on the crash site, but saw no one in the Bullhead. Glynda then appeared and detained both Ruby and I, handcuffing only one person, me. 'What the fuck?! Sexist isn't she?'.
Inside the interrogation room, Glynda threatened them a little before the man, the legend, the wild Ozpin appeared with some cookies. The conversation was the same as canon, so I zoned out. At a certain point though, the conversation veered towards him, so he had to focus. 'Ozpin is probably interested in me (no homo) since I have no records. Well, I would be surprised if I did have records.' I thought.
Ozpin offered me the same deal as Ruby, which meant he invited me to his child-warrior rearing facility: Beacon Academy. I, of course, accepted the deal as this would allow me to do a few things, including meeting the ice princess. The day ended on a good note, so me and Ruby hurried to take the last airship to Patch.
The next day, I woke up (more like booted up) to find Ruby jumping around the house.
"Calm down, Ruby. You can get excited when we actually get there! If you continue jumping around we'll be late! And you, Yang! Say something, you're the big sister!" I said, secretly excited as fuck. 'It's an academy! That teaches us how to fight monsters! I don't actually need combat instructors but it will still be fun. Hm, maybe I should start by actually getting rid of that prick… What was his name again? Ah! Cardin.' I thought while getting my stuff organized. 'What stuff?' you might ask? Well, in the month I stayed with Taiyang and the two sisters I got some clothes, a Scroll (let me tell you, that thing is useful as fuck), and toiletries. 'Apparently, it would be strange if you didn't have those. Humans and their bodily needs are weak!'
After calming down and preparing their stuff, Ruby and Yang said their goodbye's and exited the house.
"Taiyang, thank you for letting me stay this month. Contact me if you need anything. You probably wouldn't say that from my first impression, but I am plenty strong with my weapons. Goodbye." I said. 'The guy allowed me to stay for an entire month in his house. Helping him when he needs it is the minimum I could do.'
"No problem, kid. Take care of yourself and look over Ruby and Yang for me, will you? Now go, or you'll miss the airship."
Having said goodbye, I regrouped with Yang and Ruby. We had a pleasant journey towards Beacon, with nothing eventful happening, if you exclude best boy Jaune. 'Well, he is kind of awkward, but he just needs a push in the right direction, you know? Well, more like a Sparta kick off the right mountain, but still!'
Once we actually arrived at Beacon, Yang quickly ditched me and Ruby to meet up with her friends but I couldn't care less. I was looking for a certain white-haired girl. 'Should I call he 'Ice Princess' to piss her off and get her all tsundere or 'Snow Angel' and just try to get her to open up normally? I kinda want her all tsun-tsun, but 'Snow Angel' sounds better. That guy Neptune knew his nicknames well. If he does try to get close to her, I'll rip him apart though.'
And just as I finished thinking about the blue haired womanizer, Ruby fell on top of a trolley. Her interaction with Weiss was exactly like canon but just as the white-haired beauty was about to shake the Dust vial, I gently stopped her.
"Careful Snow Angel, if you shake this bad boy it'll explode, you know?" I said, donning the best smile I could.
"And who would you be?" she asked.
"Right, where are my manners. I'm Tula, nice to meet you…" I trailed off. 'I can't just say her name, that would be creepy. Well she does go all fan-girl over Pyrrha… Eh, I'll wing it from here.'
"Weiss Schnee. N-" she said, only to be interrupted by a naughty cat. 'Oh, I never liked some of Blake's actions. Interrupting my meeting with Weiss though counts as a capital offense.'
"She's the heiress to the Schnee Company actually, you know?" Blake interjected and went on about all that stuff about unfair working conditions and whatnot.
"I am sure you are right, kitty cat, but from what I know this started recently. When it was founded, the Schnee company was quite outstanding." I stopped her. 'No need to have Weiss start a discussion with Blake. They are both two hard-headed to come to a compromise quickly.'
When I said that, Weiss looked a little relieved and ashamed. 'She probably knows that her father isn't the best CEO, huh?'
Blake on the other hand was shocked for a second but composed herself before leaving. Calling her 'kitty cat' was the best thing I could do to make her leave.
'Oh so devilish, Tula. So devilish.' I thought to myself.
With that out of the way, I helped Weiss put her Dust back in their cases. She then decided to go around with me and Ruby, leaving her baggage to her attendants, I guess. 'First impression must have been good. Oh, I'm so happy!' I was literally on cloud nine, but I didn't show it. Ruby though must have caught on to something.
"Hey, Tula… Aren't you acting different from usual?" she asked innocently. To me though it felt like an arrow to the chest (figuratively. A bullet would do nothing, let's not talk about an arrow.)
"W-what do you mean Ruby, I'm acting normal, right?" I said, subtly winking.
She must have understood as she said: "Ooh! Yeah, totally normal!"
Weiss was looking quite entertained. 'I guess that's fine.'
Anyway. We headed to the auditorium without getting lost thanks to me and Weiss actually knowing where the fuck we were going. We then squeezed close to Yang. I had to glare at somebody to make him leave and make space for Weiss, but those are details. Ozpin arrived, did his speech, then left us to our own devices for the night. Ruby and Weiss seem to have a friendly relationship. 'Ok, maybe friendly is a little premature, but they don't hate each other at least. Not that Ruby is capable of hating anyone.' They decided to sleep close to each other.
I went to clean up before hitting the sack. I decided to do the ultimate chad move and sleep without my shirt on. 'Maybe I'll see an embarrassed Weiss. Oh, I'm so doing this!' When I reached the auditorium, Yang suddenly acted as the best wingman (wingwoman?).
"Hey there hot stuff. What's this, trying to woo the ladies. It's kinda working, though. Look at those abs!" she said, pulling Ruby's and Weiss' attention. 'Yang is drooling… Hell yeah!'
She then pulled my sleeping bag (which I brought with me from Patch) close to the group. I then thought of something which I kinda put in the back of my mind the last month: 'Isn't it kind of strange for girls to not be embarrassed about sleeping close to hormonal teenage boys? I mean, I'm not protesting but… Oh well, different universe, different culture, I guess. Still, I would expect it to be quite uncomfortable for a girl to sleep close to someone of the opposite sex who was a perfect stranger until a few hours ago. I don't understand if I am too self-conscious/paranoid or if culture really is so different from what I am used to.'
Another thing I noticed is that Yang still pulled Ruby towards Blake, so I guess I'll take a neutral stance towards her. 'Maybe I can get her to become a bit more open than in canon. At least earlier than it should be.'
Either way, the night passed and the most eventful thing was that I woke up with Weiss attached to me like rust. 'No, even rust gets off more easily! Also, what am I?! A hug pillow?!' I thought to myself, then I looked at her again. 'I guess it's fine to lie down a little bit more.