[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

Ruby Reacts to (not quite) Cursed Guns of Helldivers;
A Ruby Reacts to Cursed Guns - Whitley-borg AU Side-story anthology
Chapter 1.0001 - GATE Gala and Setting the Stage.

GATE Gala, Standing for Garments, Arms, Technology, and Equipment. The acronym had changed once again, but this time it had fortunately become more truncated. It was originally a convention to show off all of the latest developments in weaponry, for companies to attract prospective buyers. Such as Huntsmen, Huntresses, the armed forces of Atlas, the militias, paramilitaries and self-defense forces that kept the Grimm out of every town when a Hunter wasn't immediately on hand, and everybody who realized that a weapon was necessary to survive on a (to hear the Church of the Two Brothers tell it) Gods-forsaken world. Then, some tech companies got involved, eager to show off their latest not-strictly-weapons gear. And with that crowd of well-budgeted clientele, other companies and dealers soon got in on the action. The camping and travel industry, clothing and textiles, and so on. The prior iteration of the acronym had included the letters G,S,A,V,C,T,U,O, and B, but since coming up with new words was getting cumbersome the committee had cut things down to size.

The GATE Gala fell in Vale this year, and right before the Vytal Festival. Which, while any advertising effort would be overshadowed, six blocks roped off near a skydock and an MM terminal at the northwest fringe of the commercial district, where all the casinos are, was bound to draw the attention of the crowd that had already formed before and after the fights.

The armed forces of Atlas had their own set of exhibits, booths, and stands to show off all of the gadgets and goodies that they were set to procure, or had developed (at least partly) in-house. The AK-200 had made enough of an impression in the Breach, but the P-290 had been absent. Plus it would allow General Ironwood to try and salvage the reputation of the Atlesian army after the PR nightmare that had been the announcement of the SDC's Cute Goths and Cursed Guns Clearance Event, in which the head of the SDC Marketing Department had, in collaboration with a charming, intelligent, gothic beauty of a Huntress-aspirant who shared his interests in cartridge wildcatting and weapons design, put together a marketing campaign for the SDC. And, as it had happened, that marketing campaign turned the highest strata of Atlesian society, military, politics, and all, into the loudest, wettest fart of a punchline that Remnant had ever seen.

Which was why Warrant Officer Whitley Schnee, incidentally the head of both the SDC's Accounting and Marketing Departments, was stuck managing the series of tents reserved for the Atlas Army, and all of the cheap plastic folding tables therein, where were displayed current, prospective, and candidate weapon systems anticipated to enter service in the next year, sat at one of the aforesaid tables with an even cheaper, and yet more plastic smile stretched across his face as he scanned the throng of convention-goers. Literally, any object he focused on had its estimated size, speed, bearing, and range displayed across the top and right side of his peripheral vision.

Here he waited to treat with any curious convention goers, intent on sending them away with order forms and possibly a recruiting brochure.

But Whitley's thoughts were elsewhere, mostly centered on the silver eyes and thick thighs of a lovely Huntress as she danced across the moonlit interior of his mind, hoping to once again run into Ruby Rose as the very enthusiastic goth girl skipped and flew across the convention, firing off factoids, questions, and speculations like a CIWS.

Wait.

That wasn't a mere mental image he went in and digitally edited.

In the crowd Whitley could see a textured, angular bob cut, black and full with red ends that bounced with every step above the brilliant red of a rosenrot mantle so vibrant that it looked solemn against the dull world around it. Before he knew it, he had jumped over the display table, with the thud of his boots betraying the weight of his small frame as they hit the ground. 'I'm not abandoning my post to frolic with a woman, sir' he thought to himself as he rose, 'I'm merely engaging with an intelligent, and very attractive convention-goer and enticing her to our display.' He thought as he began to move. 'Besides, between pinging my skull sonar and sharing data with the security cameras, it isn't like I won't be able to catch anyone trying anything.' He justified himself as he began to jog.

"Ruby!" He called as he waved.

"Whitley?" she replied in her melodious natural soprano as she turned towards him. And while he was not of any religious persuasion, looking at her head-on, Whitley understood why the church of the Two Brothers always depicted the Elder - the greater of the two, and the patron of life - with Silver Eyes.

"WHITLEY!" echoed one of Remnant's foremost pop stars, ironically flattening the melody that the woman next to her had spun unto ruin.

"What are you doing here?" They both asked.

Whitley looked Ruby square in the eyes. "My CO wants me to help him run the Army's exhibit. To help, 'restore their reputation' after our little video together turned both public and private procurement in Atlas into a laughing stock." Ruby giggled, and Whitley took a moment to admire her.

"That still doesn't explain why you're wearing that uniform," there was, if Whitley had to guess, shock, no, surprise, that was more accurate. And distress in Weiss' voice. Why, he couldn't say. "Father didn't want to pay for my prosthesis," he answered in an even tone. "What?" "What?" "What?" Weiss responded first, then the dark-haired woman who was obviously Blake Belladonna wearing a bow, and then Ruby and the woman who must have been her older sister spoke at the same time. The former knew he was a cyborg, but he had not fully disclosed the circumstances surrounding his conversion.

"Prosthesis?" The daughter that Jacques Schnee hadn't disowned yet still sounded shocked. And for some reason, it looked like the veins in her neck were throbbing at a heightened tempo, in a pattern almost identical to the one displayed by Colonel Schnee when she found out whose brain was housed in the ICE Dragon frame. Odd. Weiss had no reason not to know who he was, and therefore no reason to be surprised. Hopefully this was not evidence of something hereditary.

"Correct. He tried to pass the loss onto the portion of the Army budget dedicated to cybernetics for wounded soldiers by threatening the Dust supply. General Ironwood did not like that. But he took pity on me, so I got all of the robot bits, but I only get to keep them pending two tours of duty and helping with the Advanced Projects Research Army Division's advanced projects and research. So who wants to see the procurement candidacy exhibit?" Whitley asked with a high note of forced enthusiasm.

"I DO, I DO, I DO!" Ruby started jumping up and down with some very real enthusiasm of her own.

"Wonderful," Whitley's didn't have to force it at all, as he turned around and started walking back toward the stands.

"Ooooo, it sounds like Weisscream's brother has a crush on you, Ruby."

"NO HE DOESN'T!" Weiss yelled back.

"She's charming, intelligent, attractive, and capable," Whitley interjected without missing a beat, "Why shouldn't I have a crush on her?"

He would just assume that the girl now hiding under her hood had only been picking her nose a few seconds ago because it would get on Weiss' nerves.

Whitley beckoned Team RWBY to a table with a very simple pistol. A VERY simple pistol. A single shot, break-action pistol, in fact. Hardly more complex than a muzzleloader. There was just one thing.


The barrel was forty millimeters wide.

"This is the GP-31." Whitley explained, "Fires a 40 mil grenade at a hundred meters a second. It features high-vis iron sights, along with a mounting rail if you have other preferences," he tapped the frame of the red dot sight not quite at the back end of the rail. "Safety features; a primary selector on the upper receiver that you can switch between safe and fire. Fire being the position with the little bullet carving, and it is ambidextrous, so it can be accessed from a natural position, no matter which hand you hold it with. There is a secondary grip safety. And to reload, you press here, pull the barrel out, turn to eject the spent shell, load, reverse, and you're ready to fire again." He said as he went through the steps and mimicked loading in a grenade.

Ruby leaned across the table and whispered, "My birthday is on Halloween, in case you're wondering."

"Message received, and understood." Whitley replied.

"Boo." Yang mock-shouted while shaking her downward turned thumb. "Show her something fucked up again commercial man."

"Damn it Yang." Ruby muttered, "fine, let's fucking get this over with," she rolled her eyes. "What is the most fucked up gun you have on display here today."

Whitley paused, "I actually have to think about that," he muttered. That did not inspire confidence.

Ruby Rose was a sophisticated woman, possessing elevated tastes and refined sensibilities. Therefore, a gun would have to be chosen that offended both on the aesthetic and engineering levels. Something that combined absurdity of form with inconvenience of function. Nevertheless, it should be a good weapon, functionally, in most areas. A weapon that could not, on the merits, be called bad. But designed in such a way that it should be easy to misunderstand and misuse.

And with each criteria Whitley filtered through, he was led, intractably, to a single weapon.

"Whitley, what's wrong?" Ruby asked, concerned by the way his face shifted into both a grimace and a glower together.

"Just promise you won't hate me for this," he replied with exhaustion, before leading them on to one of the tables with a white/grey cloth draped over it with a red border The trifecta with the stylized odachi running through it on the top right corner marking the exhibit as belonging to the Stark Arms conglomerate.

"No problem," Ruby said, "no matter how mad I get I promise I won't hate you over it. After all, how bad could it beeee..." Ruby's voice trailed off into nothingness as Whitley pulled back the cloth

"Famous last words." Blake Belladonna noted.

"This," Whitley explained, is the Stark Arms SkA-52 urban warfare carbine,"


"Behold it's helical feed magazine, a staple of the past two generations of Stark design. It is offered in chamberings of both 5.5 mil with a 56 shot magazine, and an 8.6 mil with a 40 shot magazine. To release the magazine, you just press the button on the back of the cheek riser and flip it up like so." The orange barrel of a magazine dropped to the table. "You slot the new one in on the back," he continued, putting the magazine back. "Close it down, pull the charging handle, and you're back in business." We've got a select fire switch with single, five shot burst, or full auto with a cyclic rate of 790 rpm. It comes with an integrated carry handle with iron sights with replacement mounts for a red dot, a scope, or a hybrid optic. The muzzle has a built-in break and option for a suppressor, and a modular under-barrel mount with options for a forty millimeter grenade launcher, shotgun, or flashlight."

"That all sounds really impressive when put together like that." the presumed heiress of the SDC surmised as Whitley se the gun back down on the table and draped the cloth back over it.

"And it was designed by a Faunus," the princess of Menagerie incognito noted. Which was true. General Stark liked girls with wolf ears. Which meant a lot of wolf-Faunus maid-concubines. With his death at the end of the Great War, his human descendants had to grapple with the sons and daughters from all of the new and lupine branches on the family tree, the four that could inherit legally anyway. One intrafamily internecine power struggle later, and the new patriarch of the family, Schatten Stark, rebuilt the family fortune by sinking his teeth and claws as deep into the arms, technology, and shipping industries as he could. However the Stark name was forever tarnished. First by General Alexander's defeat at the hands of the Last King of Vale, and second by the shadow war fought between Schatten Stark and all of his half-siblings. The name that had meant an unbroken record of honor, as old as man's first steps on Solitas, was dead. And Schatten Stark was also dead, leaving his oldest daughter, Siarka, the head engineer, chief designer, and now, owner, CEO, and Chairwoman of Stark Arms to resurrect it.

Of course, Whitley made note of exactly where Blake Belladonna's interest in the platform started and stopped, before he moved on.

"How much?" Yang asked. "When they hit convention shelves in a couple of days, asking price is set to be 72,900 Lien for a model with adjustable feed, as well as a swappable barrel and chamber. Suppressor and optics, as well as under-barrel attachments sold separately. " Whitley explained.

"Good, I'll take-" Yang was interrupted by a crack of skin on skin that sounded almost like a pistol going off inside of the tent.

"No. You. FUCKING! Won't." Ruby, who had been ramrod straight and stiff as a board since Whitley had unveiled the gun, said as she massaged her palm, that had somehow ended up redder than Yang's cheek.

"Why not?!" Yang fired back, her eyes flickering red. "You're the one who is always telling me that I need another ranged weapon, and this thing seems pretty top-shelf with all of its attachments. It even has another shotgun. A forty millimeter shotgun, that's almost double Ember Cecilia's bore diameter."

"I'll fucking tell you why Yang." Ruby bit back in a tone mirroring her sister's. "I get the decision not to include a trigger guard. You need to wear big heavy gloves in Solitas, and you need to fit your finger around the trigger. That is okay. What is absolutely not okay is a 56 shot magazine with a FIVE shot burst. Five does not go into fifty six evenly. What you have there is a gun that in 8.6, has eight bursts, so far so good, or in 5.5, has eleven-point-two. They both divide evenly by eight, and I get that. But then what is the point of not making the burst two, or if you really, really, needed to above three, four shots. Those numbers multiply evenly into eight. Why not those?"

"And then there's the height over bore. You could have had the iron sights mounted into the carry handle, but no. That makes too much sense. Instead let's stick the charging handle on top of the chamber, mount that into the back of the carry handle, and put the iron sights on top of that. WHICH YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO, BECAUSE THERE'S ANOTHER CHARGING HANDLE ON THE BOLT EDIFICE ITSELF, RIGHT BEHIND THE FUCKING SELECTOR SWITCH." Ruby's gesticulations were picking up in pace and scope. She went from flailing her arms to curling up on herself to flailing again as she paced back and forth between her teammates.

"And the bottom is hardly any fucking better." Ruby seethed more and more, "The GL, I get. The shotgun, I kind of get. BUT A FORTY MILLIMETER FLASHLIGHT?!?!?!?! You have a FUCKING PIC RAIL ON THE FUCKING SIDE OF THE FUCKING GUN! Why not mount a normal size flashlight on one side, and a laser on the Other? Huh? ANSWER ME!"

Whitley's expected joy at getting a face full of Ruby was mixed with an equal measure of fear.

"Well, you're right about the flashlight," Ruby let out a confident "hmph," as he conceded the point and a step back. "But I know that they're investigating the viability of installing a laser integrated into the optic."

Ruby blinked, twice, "that's actually really nifty. And very considerate in light of how fucking hard it is going to be to zero this fucking thing. GGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! This gun is so fucking cursed but it is also so functional. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing a lot of the avenues that this platform explores developed on further... FUCK! This gun keeps giving me reasons not to hate it, no matter how much I should. It doesn't feel right. I feel icky inside, I'm gonna need a shower after this..."

"In and out Ruby, in and out. Just breathe in... and out." Yang said as she walked her sister who had gone from flailing, to thrashing, to stomping, to rolling around on the ground.

Ruby composed herself and she got up. "Because... haaa... hhaaa... I cannot forgive... the whole back end of that fucking gun." She composed herself. "The whole fucking cheek riser hinges up in order to release the magazine. Wear and tear is going to compound on every reload, and there goes your accuracy, I do not care that this gun was designed for sub-200 meter firefights. Because the second you re-shoulder the gun, and look down the sights, what is the most prominent feature of the gun that you can see? Huh? TELL ME! WHAT IS IT?!?!"

"The exposed recoil spring?" Whitley answered.

"THE EXPOSED RECOIL SPRING!" Ruby yelled back in his face. "How the fuck does this gun even cycle in anything less than perfect weather???"

"I do not know, but I have seen them fire just fine in blizzard conditions." Whitley answered, silently thankful for his audio-receptor system's volume editing function.

"You're lucky I think you're cute." Ruby muttered, before clamping both hands around her mouth and flushing the color of her cloak.

"Oooo, looks like little Ruby is finally starting to show interest in boys." Yang leaned on her sister.

Blake Belladonna appeared to jot something in a notebook before departing from the tent.

"Yaaang..." Ruby groaned.

"You can't just like him, you dolt!" Weiss shouted in a mixture of shock and disgust. And Whitley resolved to double his efforts of courtship.

"What if I showed her some nicer guns. Could she like me then?" Whitley asked.

"I need to see some nicer guns after that." Ruby replied, while holding out her hand, and Weiss' face did the best impression it could of a computer's crash screen.

Whitley vaulted the table once again, "Then come this way, Miss Rose." He accepted her offered hand and led Team R__Y to another table (Weiss.exe had not yet rebooted). This one was dominated by a massive, shoulder-fired weapon.


"It is a relatively simple design, drawn up and commissioned by a certain party that wants the armed forces to further economize. It is a reciprocating barrel, and toggle-lock action housed in a box that mounts the grips, optic, and the fixed magazine that gets fed via stripper clips. Chambered in 20x102mm, it can fire APHE-T, frag, or flak rounds. Other calibers and rounds are being studied, but nothing else produced satisfactory results in time for this year's convention. This thing had some problems in the initial testing phase, because it was originally intended to be an anti-material rifle, but people soon discovered that you needed at least a 20-mil cartridge to operate a toggle spring this powerful on recoil alone." Whitley explained.

"It weighs nothing at all," Ruby said as she picked the weapon up and shouldered it, before looking it over. She had expected something in Crescent Rose's neighborhood, with this gun's caliber and size. But not so. It was, just by feeling estimation, somewhere between a fifth and a third of her son's weight.

"Indeed," Whitley commented. "So I don't recommend firing it on full auto unless you're being charged at close range by a Goliath or a very large Death Stalker. Unless there is also a Nevermore swooping down on you from overhead when you engage the other target. And also completely surrounded."

Ruby nodded, the weapon wasn't front-heavy. It wasn't heavy at all, but the weight of both the magazine and the firing mechanism were neatly aligned with her shoulder. So any sustained fire without training or considerable strength meant that the shots would be going all over the place. "This looks like a very viable platoon or company-level support weapon," she surmised. "It cannot do the work of a machine gun, or a rocket launcher. But it is a nice in-between, I imagine that this could enable a single person, without Aura, to go toe-to-toe with a beringal, or a geist that got into something large."


As always, Ruby's analysis was fast and comprehensive. Rockets existed, as did MGLs or AGLs, but the robust physiology and dynamism of the beringal, and the geist's capacity for concealment and maneuverability made their muzzle velocities a liability without the advantages of considerable range or surprise. But Ruby recognized instantly what kind of a battlefield game-changer this weapon would be. She also quickly identified the level of support it would need to be deployed alongside to be viable. A calculation that matched Whitley's own.

Then Ruby's stomach growled. "Uh, which way to the food?" She asked.

"Concessions are one block down to your left and make a left turn. I think they let a few restaurants stay open on the upper floors of some other buildings near the far side of the convention if you feel like sitting for something more substantial though." Whitley responded.

"Thanks." Ruby replied back, "I... mean we... will be back later to check out more guns."

Whitley bade her farewell and the sisters departed, with Yang carrying the still-unresponsive W of their team under her arm like a wooden plank.

------

This one was a difficult beast. I basically scrapped everything I had after writing 1700 words because the characters weren't working with me. Then I started from scratch again after 1500 words because I didn't like the pacing. My main problem was that I wrote this with two different minds going in two different directions. I wanted to introduce concepts, ideas, and even a few characters that you'll get to meet sooner or later. But I also wanted to write about Ruby and the guns of Helldivers. Now, since I was not explicitly requested to do the cursed guns of Helldivers, I had a bit of fun and gave Ruby a pair of nice guns for a change. And believe me, before and after the StA-52, she needed them. Because there is a real gun that works like the StA-52. Well. There is a real gun that has its bolt carrier group and feeding system set up in the same way that the StA-52 would need to be in order to work.

The gun that I am talking about is the Korobov TKB-022. German Korobov is a bit of a legend, and a contentious subject, over whether or not any of his guns actually qualify as being cursed. His first gun lost to Mikhail Kalashnikov's design in 1946, and I think he was submitting prototypes (almost all of which had exclusively Bakelite furniture) all the way through the 1980s. None of which were accepted, and just looking at a few of them, you would see why. But because the designs themselves were so innovative (the TKB-022 kind of being an FN F2000 built 40 years before the F2000) some hesitate to simply label his designs as cursed and be done with it. I said all of that to say that while I love the Killzone games, in order for the StA-52 to work, with what we are shown, it would basically have to be an upside-down TKB-022 that couldn't decide if it wanted to go as a G36, an M16, or a FAMAS for Halloween, and it does not help that as the Killzone series rolls on that barrel shroud looks more and more like it came from an MG-42. I had to write in all of the extra features as a way of translating in all of the ways that the StA-52 changes from one game to another, from damage to fire rate, to the silenced model with the five shot burst.

Of course, I didn't have it in me to give Ruby another cursed gun before or after the StA-52. So I gave her a utility pistol that I think she would like, and the gun that is essentially Russ Robinson's SR-9 Anti-Material Machine Rifle that has been up-gunned from .50 cal to 20 mil, and uses a toggle lock (like on the Luger) rather than the bike-chain sort of system that I think the Lahti and the Solothurn used.

I have a few more guns in Helldivers that I know are cursed, and a few that are cursed enough, and one that I am tentatively putting in the "cursed" box because it has this one singular design feature that turns its everything else into a liability and ham-strings it in its designated role. Jaune and Yang's Payday 2 themed adventure is going to incorporate that.

As for the whole cyborg-Whitley thing, I kind of wanted to do something with one of my stories that I haven't yet fleshed out, and this piece wouldn't manifest without it. So I feel, again, as I sometimes do, like I owe my readership an apology for making it all the way through to the end. I hope the characters came across as coherent, my little sideshows of lore didn't substantively derail the plot, and that my editing was as good as it has been recently, and that you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Editor von BarnOwl here. Caught and fixed mistakes. Could have sworn I saw one more, but I can always get it later.

Editor von Barnowl Note #2: Please forgive the esoteric dating system and the mammoth of a title block. The .0000 system is just to suggest relative time of all of the vignettes that I write have to each other in the series. I suggest Ruby's storyline is the only one that I expect to be linear and consistent for the time being.

James: you have got to be hands down the worst undercover agent I have ever seen.

Qrow: well fuck you too.

James: look at your last fake identity you made! Bud Weiser father of two daughters Molly and Mary Jane.

Qrow: I'm a great agent!

James: how hasn't your identity been leaked yet? There is absolutely no conceivable way you haven't been discovered infiltrating places with these piss poor disguises.

Qrow: you ever think maybe it's a act and I'm actually good at my job?

James: you got so drunk yesterday that during a bullhead flight into vale you confused your piss jug, why do you have that, with your flask.

Qrow: the jug makes it so I don't gotta stop on long trips. Anyway, I haven't been revealed on a job, so I gotta be good at my job right? Logic.

James: you can't even spell logic.

Qrow: sure I can, there's a K in there somewhere.

Glynda: oh for- listen. He sneaks in as a bird and everyone is too embarrassed that someone this incompetent snuck past them somehow. And logic with a K is a musician.

Qrow: hurtful.

Honestly, May teaching Ruby how to be a proper sniper could be fun. May being a badass sneaky assassin because she's so shy and quiet is something I really like. But Ruby doesn't really fight that way.

So Ruby sucks at being sneaky, and covert. She's got the math down just fine, of course, but to her, all the calculation required for shooting is a bit boring compared to the math that goes into Crescent Rose.

Ruby: "I mean... taking out Grimm at 1200 meters would be lame!"

May: looks indignant "It-It is not lame! I work very hard to shoot that good! Watch!"

She sets up her shot carefully, does the math...

Across campus... Professor Oobleck's coffee cup explodes in the middle of his lecture.

Oobleck: "... That was unexpected."

The class blinks. Oobleck calmly gets another mug, pours himself more coffee, and sips it.

Oobleck: "Now, where were we? Oh yes!"

Back with May and Ruby. Ruby stares at her.

May: blush "I-I'm sorry... I shouldn't have gotten mad... Oh no, I shot his coffee mug! What if it was his favorite-?!"

Ruby: gasp "That... WAS AMAZING!"

May: "R-Really?"

Ruby: "REALLY! TEACH ME!"

May: "Well, um... Okay!"

Ruby does eventually just stick with her fighting style, but trying to learn how to be sneaky is fun. And she does pick up a few things. Same way that May picks up a few things from Ruby when it comes to her fighting style.

This is a commission I wrote.
- - -

Ilia slowly woke up from a painfilled, troubled sleep. She was sore, and felt the lingering effects of Aura transfer. She opened her eyes cautiously, and took in her surroundings.

She was in a hospital room, hooked up to medical sensors that projected her vitals. And a young blond human boy was sitting at her side, looking bored. He couldn't be any more than 15 years old, though he was tall for his age. He looked over and noticed her. He smiled.

"Hey! You're awake!" he said cheerfully. "How are you feeling? What do you remember?"

Ilia scowled.

"Where am I? What is this place?! Who are you?!"

"Oh, uh, this is Arc-En-Ciel Hospital, in Radian, Gallia, Vale," the boy said, "And I'm Jaune Arc! I'm just an intern nurse right now but I'm here to help! What can you tell me about what happened?"

The op had gone bad. They had been trying to steal a shipment of Dust from an SDC train. Something had gone wrong, there was an explosion… She scowled at the unassuming boy. It would be just like them to put an innocent looking kid in here to get her to lower her guard.

"I won't tell you anything," she hissed, "human!"

The boy sighed.

"Well… The chart says you got caught in a Dust explosion," Jaune said, "Suffered a concussion and a lot of burns. Can I check to see how you're doing?"

Ilia continued to glare, her skin turning red in anger. He smiled.

"I just want to make sure you're okay."

"My people will come for me," Ilia growled, "They'll get me out of here."

She tried to sit up… And immediately slumped back down, nauseous. The boy held up a sick bag and she vomited into it.

"Yeah, you're definitely still suffering from a concussion," the boy sighed. He took the sickbag and put it into a medical waste bin. He got her some water in a bottle with a straw sticking out of the top. "Here."

Ilia glared. Jaune shook his head.

"It's all right. It's just water."

Ilia was thirsty. Very much so. She couldn't exactly make her escape if she was weak. So she sipped the water, glaring all the time.

"Can you remember your name?" Jaune asked. "Where you were born?"

Ilia's skin flashed several different colors. His eyes widened. She scowled harder.

Here it comes, she thought, hatred and disgust and fear and-

"Wow! You're a chameleon Faunus? That's so cool!" Jaune gushed. Ilia stared, her spots turning red and pink.

"Wh-What?"

"That's so amazing!" Jaune continued, leaning forward eagerly. "That's really cool! Can you do all sorts of patterns and stuff?"

"I…" Ilia was taken aback. She'd… Never been asked that. Not once. Out of reflex, her skin color and patterns changed rapidly. Jaune beamed.

"That's incredible," he said. "And it proves you're healing well if you can do that! My mom's the best doctor around!"

"... I see," Ilia murmured. She looked over her skin: She remembered burns, so many burns all over her body… But she couldn't see a trace. Not even the hints of scar tissue.

A human… Did this for me…? Ilia wondered. Humans did this for me?

"So, what is your name? Do you remember it?" Jaune asked.

Ilia stared at him intensely. She took a breath.

"Yes… But I'm not sharing it," she said, "My friends will come for me."

Jaune shrugged.

"Okay. They'll just have to check you out at the front desk then," he said. "You wanna call them?"

He pointed to the phone by the hospital bed. Ilia sucked in a deep breath.

"... Sure."

It was risky, but she knew a burner Scroll to call in case of emergencies. Jaune stood up and walked out. Ilia scowled as he left.

One kind human… Two kind humans… What does it matter?

She made the call. She waited…

"What?" A cold voice demanded. Ilia felt some relief though-It was Adam.

"I need… I need someone to check me out-Get me out of here-"

"We assessed the possibility of doing that. It would take too many resources," Adam stated. A pit formed in Ilia's stomach.

"But-You can't just-I've worked so hard-!"

"You let yourself be taken by the humans," Adam scoffed, "Your weakness betrays you. Blake believes you are dead. That is far better than letting her think you betrayed us."

"I didn't betray you, I'm still loyal!" Ilia insisted.

"Then why would the humans treat you so well?" Adam demanded. "As I said, Blake believes you are dead. Stay that way. If you come back it will be in disgrace and death."

The line went dead. Ilia stared at the phone receiver. Tears began to fall from her eyes.

She heard Jaune enter again. She felt his arms go around her-Comforting and warm.

"Hey… Are you okay?" Jaune asked quietly, "What's wrong?"

"... Ilia," she sobbed.

"Huh?"

"That's… That's my name. Ilia," Ilia cried, pushing her face into his chest. Confused, Jaune hugged her tightly.

"Ilia… That's a pretty name… Did you… Did you reach anyone who could help?"

"... No," Ilia whispered. "Nobody… I-I'm… I'm all… Alone."

Jaune held her for a while. He shook his head.

"Not anymore, Ilia. I… I'll ask my parents to help. We'll get you a job, promise. And I'll be your friend. Forever."

Ilia sniffled.

"You promise?"

"Always," Jaune whispered.

- - -

Two Years Later…

Ruby Rose stepped off the airship, squinting a bit at the bright sunlight. She took in the expanse of Beacon Academy before her, grinning despite her nervousness. Sure, being abandoned by her sister was a bit terrifying but she… She could do this! She could-!

She bumped into someone, and Dust went off in an explosion. She slammed into the pavement, digging a crater out with her face.

"Owww…!"

"Careful, you idiot!"

Ruby looked up. A white haired girl in white clothing scowled down at her, getting her various containers of Dust organized. Ruby winced.

"I'm sorry-HEY! You shouldn't ship that much Dust anyway!"

"You shouldn't be clumsy, little girl!" The girl sniffed.

"Hey. Need help?"

Ruby looked to her right. She saw an armored hand reach out to her. She followed the hand up his arm to his face: A kind, warm face with blond hair and blue eyes. Ruby flushed and didn't know why as he helped her stand up.

"Everyone okay?" He asked.

"Um, y-yes," Ruby managed. "Just me, a normal girl with normal knees!"

Smooth, her mind sarcastically supplied.

"Cool," he said, "I'm Jaune Arc. You are?"

"Ruby Rose," Ruby said with a nervous smile. His smile remained warm and friendly.

Jaune looked over at the young woman in white.

"You could be more careful, you know," he gently admonished her. The white haired girl blushed and sniffed.

"She should be! I am a Dust Expert! The Dust Expert! Weiss Schnee, of the Schnee Family!"

"The same family that employs slave labor of Faunus in their Dust Mines?" A black haired girl with a large, prominent bow asked dryly, walking by while carrying several books. Weiss flushed angrily.

"That's-That's all in the past! We stopped doing that-!"

"Not according to the news," another girl stated. She was dressed in a hoodie which shadowed her face. She stepped up to Jaune's side and took his hand. They shared a warm, loving look, before the girl turned towards the Schnee girl. She scowled at Weiss too… Before she looked at the dark haired girl. Her eyes widened.

"Blake…?"

The dark haired girl gaped at her in shock.

"Ilia?!"

Blake drew her weapon, a ninjato machine pistol, and pointed it at Ilia. Ilia, in turn, pulled out a whip crackling with electricity and held it up threateningly.

Ruby, Weiss and Jaune looked between the two furious girls. Jaune coughed. Weiss winced. Ruby again displayed her amazing social skills.

"So… I take it you two have met?"

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