[RWBY] Stare into my...

[LeonTrollski]

Ch.1

Team RWBY's regular team bonding outings had been a great success in Ruby's opinion. The team was more in sync, performed better in their combat classes, and they were even all still friends after all the racism/terrorism revelations! Probably the bonding had helped! The only downside was sometimes the debates about what to actually do on the outings could get heated.

It had sounded like there was good news on that front this time. Yang had won tickets to a demolition derby on the weekend of the outing. BAM! Tickets already in hand, nothing to debate. But it turned out that she had won two tickets, not four. So they were going to be doing partner bonding outings. That was fine! It was good to build the more personal connections too.

But the debate about what to do was definitely un-settled. The RW half of the team was hashing it out in Beacon's courtyard, leaning against the base of one of its many archways. They had been watching some ducks enjoying the courtyard's reflecting pool, but their voices had already raised enough to cause them to paddle away.

"Weiss, it might not be big compared to the ones from Atlas, but it's still cutting edge military hardware! It's not like Vale launches a new airship everyday. The shipyard is gonna make a big show of it. There'll be displays showing off all its systems, especially its weapons, and there'll be stunt flyers, and food stalls." Ruby raised a finger to emphasize a final point. "There'll even be a band, since you want some music so bad."

The Schnee heiress pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes briefly. "The all-Solitas orchestra is not just 'some band,' Ruby. They are one of the finest in Remnant, and they don't come around every day either." She crossed her arms, smiling as she came to her own knock down point. "besides, I know these people. I sang a concert with them back in Atlas. The director will get us VIP box seats if I ask."

"VIP seats?" Ruby asked, more horrified than convinced. "This is starting to sound like a ladystilts event Weiss."

"Well yes, Ruby, we would need to dress up a little."

"Uuh, shouldn't we do something that'll also contribute to our careers as awesome huntresses?" Ruby raised her hands in a pair of finger guns, miming firing off a flurry of shots. "We're gonna need to know our way around all kinds of weapons! We aren't gonna need to know how to navigate fancy concerts."

Weiss pushed away from the stone pillar and stepped forward, turning around to face Ruby directly with a hand on her hip and a glare.

Oh, right. Her partner had a music career. Ruby rubbed the back of her head and let out a little laugh. "Well, I guess you will, but you're already an expert, right?"

"If you recall, I backed you up when you made that very same 'career advancement' argument about the gun show, Ruby." the fencer rolled her eyes. "but, as much as it would thrill you, your career as a huntress is not going to involve firing many battleship main cannons. Besides, getting some culture would do you some good."

"I have culture!" she objected. "Just because it's not all snooty doesn't mean its not culture!" Ruby matched Weiss's glare with one of her own.

...This was starting to edge from debate to argument, which defeated the purpose of bonding. Time for leadership action. The sniper considered her options. Should she literally pull rank? No, that seemed besides the point too. Suggest a compromise idea? No, if she didn't get to see the airship launch she'd rather go to the dumbfancy concert so Weiss could enjoy it rather than go to some third thing that neither of them would like as much, and she figured Weiss probably felt the same way.

The events were on the same weekend, but not the same day. She could suggest they skip studying and do both? No, she shook her head. Weiss would never go for that. What to do…

Just as the other girl opened her mouth to fire back, Ruby interrupted, "I've got an idea!" then zipped away in a cloud of rose petals. In the span of a few heartbeats, she crossed the length of Beacon's courtyard, banged open the doors to the library, and snatched a box off the shelves.

Filling out the checkout form and sheepishly apologizing to the librarian for the noise actually took a bit, but a few more heartbeats after that and she was back in front of her partner. Who looked a little annoyed at being ditched.

"And just where did you run off too?" the heiress demanded.

Ruby just grinned back, and held up the copy of Remnant: The Game she'd gotten, wiggling it back and forth.

"Play you for it? Winner decides our bonding adventure!"

-----​

Weiss huffed. There had been enough boardgame nights with RWBY and JNPR that she at least knew how to play, but it was hardly her strength. She glared at her team leader and met her bright silver eyes shining above the box.

…They really did make for an effective pout.

"Fine," The white haired girl agreed. At least it would settle things "But I get first move."

"Then I get first pick of kingdom!" Ruby pumped her arms up in the air in victory, raising the box above her head.

The heiress drew herself up to her full height, tilting her head back in the very picture of Atlesian elite disdain. "Agreed. Now get ready to taste defeat! Remnant will be mine, and you'll learn something about decent music."

The reaper dropped into something like a combat stance, albeit not a very intimidating one with a board game taking the place of her giant sniper-scythe. "We'll never let you oppress the people of Remnant! And after our fleets stop you, we'll show them our appreciation for real!"

It was a windy day, and they had learned their lesson about just how much chaos a sudden gust could inject into a boardgame, so rather than claiming one of the picnic tables Weiss suggested just heading back to the library.

"Umm, I may have just... annoyed the librarian by crashing through the doors and leaving rose petals everywhere so probably we shouldn't?" Ruby answered Weiss's glare with a sheepish giggle.

"You dolt," she muttered fondly. "Fine, we'll check out one of the study rooms then." Anyone doing actual schoolwork could demand the room, but it wasn't like they were ever fully booked outside of exam season.

They made their way inside, the chatter of huntsmen and huntresses enjoying free periods and the hum of airship engines making the run down to Vale City giving way to quieter murmurs and the sound of shoes on polished floors.

In the hallway adjoining the library there was a long series of closely spaced doors, and Weiss scanned in on the pad next to one of them doors to claim the room. Inside, the quieter noise of the hallways dropped off again to near silence as the door slid closed behind the pair. It was sparsely furnished, a long table with three chairs on either side, a holodisplay currently displaying a picture of Beacon Acadeny, a bookshelf with a handful of textbooks and enough space for personal belongings, a couch against the back wall, and a slider to control how opaque the window to the hallway was. A perfect place to study (or game) without distractions.

As Ruby walked around to the other side of the table and set the game down. Weiss turned to face the window, putting her finger on the slider and pushing it all the way to maximum and watching the window dim down to a shiny black.

It wasn't like it was against the rules to use unoccupied study rooms for recreation, but still. Weiss would rather not be seen playing boardgames in here. She turned around and took the seat opposite her partner and started helping set up the game.

-----​

Ruby had chosen Vacuo, so Weiss took the furthest kingdom away, Mistral, to give herself the maximum amount of time to build her economy before battle was joined. She spent her early turns using her two starting armies to secure Menagerie. That wouldn't normally be worthwhile, but with Mistral's strong economy the resources there were enough to fund another two armies to send into Solitas, capturing Mantle and besieging Atlas.

Her partner had instead elected to forego building an economy, and had driven straight through Vale towards Weiss's territory. She had used her scavenge ability to capture the neutral units she destroyed on the way and supplemented that with Grimm cards, enough to strengthen her starting forces and get a third army of her own on the board.

"It looks like I've caught you red handed General Schnee!" Ruby declared, grinning wide as her front made contact with the other girl's. "Reigniting the faunus war and putting Mantle to the torch? Your tyranny will never stand!"

It wasn't like that! Weiss didn't have anything against the faunus. Or she was trying not to at least! Their island just had a lot of iron. She bit back that retort and scoffed instead. "And how would the people of Vale feel about you marching through their territory Queen Rose?"

"The people of Vale greet me as liberators! Just look how many of them are serving in my armies."

"And the heavily armed desert raiders behind them and hordes of 'tamed' Grimm surrounding them have nothing to do that?" Weiss asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Details~" Ruby dismissed and reached out for the board, sliding two of her armies South, towards the water connection into Menagerie, and played a fleet card to let them make the trip in the same turn.

She would have to make a control roll for her Grimm to get them on the boats. No matter how long you'd herded them with your army they were still monsters and when you did anything more complex than basic movement Grimm units risked turning on you, attacking friendly units if your control roll failed and doing more damage the more you failed by. Weiss leaned forward in anticipation, but the risk payed off. 6 dice and only one was below a four. The armies landed on Menagerie's shore with only only a single point of damage between them.


Weiss grimaced and drummed her fingers on the table. That put her in a tricky position. Her armies in Menagerie were her weaker ones and Vacuoan armies were good in rough terrain, which the southern island had plenty of. Could she hold on there long enough for her more elite troops to finish taking Atlas or did she need to rush into Vale to cut Ruby's troops off?

She stopped drumming her fingers and made a fist. No. Weiss usually played conservatively, and Weiss usually lost. This was the time for boldness. Ruby had over-extended. She might not have three whole continents under her control like she'd planned, but two and a half should be plenty when her opponent hadn't even locked down one. "I'll discard 4 cards for extra movement and bring both armies from the Atlas siege to the North coast of Vale." Her captured Atlesian airships would let her do it without a fleet.

"ah, ah, ah, wait right there general~" Ruby waggled a finger. "As you pass over the ocean…" she flipped over the trap cards in front of her board. It was a Hurricaine. Weiss had been sure it was going to be a snowstorm to slow down her conquest of Atlas!

"Urgh" and of course her rolls didn't come back lucky either. The first army took a beating, limping into port at half strength. The second fared a little better, but it wouldn't be winning control of central Vale if her partner kept reading her like this.

How had Ruby known she was going to play so aggressively? Weiss hadn't known that until she did it! She leaned forward, putting her chin in her hand as she glared at the younger girl. What was she thinking? She looked deep into those sliver orbs hoping for some clue.

Weiss had always liked Ruby's eyes. They were so striking, the way they caught the light and shadows, the murky shapes inside them moving every time her gaze shifted. She tilted her head in thought as she pondered the game, only to see one of the shadows bend sideways in time with her movement. Wait…

She leaned in closer, stared deeper, and the shadow slowly resolved, like bringing a telescope into focus. The murky spot of darkness shifted and soon Weiss saw herself staring back in double. She blinked in surprise, not having realized those silver eyes were that reflective.

"Umm… Weiss?" Ruby asked, sounding hesitant. "Are, uhh, are you going to make a move?"

Right. Weiss had been trying to work out Ruby's strategy before getting distracted. She almost just went back to looking at her hand before another thought struck her.

The heiress shifted her gaze, ever so slightly, focusing on a different section of her partner's eyes. Yes, there it was: Ruby's hand of cards.

Her glare faded and slowly spread into a smile.

-----​

Ruby swallowed hard, trying to get her heart out of her throat. The first part of the game had been completely normal. Good even! She'd been winning, Weiss had had been scoffing and glaring, and they were on track to go to the airship launch.

Now she had no idea what was going on! Weiss was leaning nearly half over the table and staring at her unblinkingly and had been for a while now. Ruby had nervously glanced away, looking around the room, but there was nothing to hold her attention. She couldn't even look out the window to watch students walking by because the window was completely darkened for privacy and oh dust Weiss had blanked it 'for privacy' hadn't she?

Ruby eventually managed to tear her gaze from her own flushed reflection in the darkened glass and when she looked back Weiss was still staring at her with those bright blue eyes that were so so intense and she still had that smug smile on her face and she was leaning even closer and now every time Ruby managed to peel her gaze away she couldn't notice anything but that window and Ruby's palms were sweating and she was going to end up staining the cards in her hands and Weiss had barely even glanced down at her own cards for two turns and AAAAAAAAAA!

Was Weiss flirting with her?? Ruby squirmed in her seat. Weiss was, despite their bickering, her best friend in the whole world and had never hinted at wanting to be anything else(Well, she had hinted at maybe wanting to be Ruby's enemy and/or bully early on but she hadn't done that in a long time). Ruby certainly hadn't ever considered being anything else, but now Weiss had gotten her in a private room and blacked out the window and was crowding into her space and staring and AAAAAAAA!!

Also the game was going badly. Weiss's armies in Vale were still pinned on the coast, but in Menagerie Ruby was getting outmaneuvered. The heiress always always seemed a step ahead, having fallen back just in time to avoid Ruby's sandstorm and then had separated the Vacuoan armies with a mirage Ruby hadn't been ready to counter. Now it looked one of those separated armies was about to be destroyed.

"Looks like you're surrounded, your majesty. Do you surrender or will I have to put the squeeze to you?"

Also, Weiss kept saying things like that (AAAAAAAAA!!!) "I'll n-never surrender to your evil!" she declared and hoped she sounded normal. Theres no way she looked normal. Her face had to be as red as her cloak.

She had a plan though, and a strong hand. Specifically, she had a Heroic Stand maneuver and enough morale to play it. It made your army take double damage and deal triple damage for one combat. Her lost army could well take two with it and turn things around.

Weiss pushed an army token forward into contact with Ruby's isolated army and discarded to make an attack. Then sat back in her seat, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder to keep it from getting caught behind her back.

Ruby waited.

"Aren't you going to bring your second army to attack from the rear?" she asked.

Weiss's grin widened. "Of course not, Ruby. Huntresses like us? I want to look you in the eyes when I throw you down." and she went right back to staring Ruby in the eyes...

Ruby slammed her Heroic Stand card down onto the table so hard her arm left a trail of rose petals fluttering in the air and she kept her gaze firmly focused on the board, not caring if she only traded one for one. "I play a maneuver for the battle!" she declared.

"In response," Weiss sing-songed, "I activate my trap card~" and she flipped the card in front of her board. Feint- combat canceled, all armies suffer fatigue equal to the value of cards played, then all played cards are discarded.

Ruby's head hit the table. "Weiss whyyyyy," she pleaded."I just wanted to be a good queen."

"Too bad." the heiress replied. "You'll make a better subject under me, I'm sure."

While Ruby tired to cope with that Weiss moved up her second force to attack and Ruby's exhausted army with no cards left to power it up was destroyed.

-----​

Things were coming to a head, Weiss thought. Ruby had retreated her surviving army out of Menagerie and left a hurricane and a swarm of sea monsters in the sea lane, making sure they couldn't be pursued. The final battle would happen in Vale, nearly right where they were actually sitting. Weiss couldn't help feeling it was appropriate.

Ruby had two strong armies in position for the final showdown to Weiss's battered one and a half, neither of them having had the chance to replenish themselves after the storm. A tough fight to be sure, but Weiss had another ace up her sleeve.

Weiss caught her partner's eyes again and gazed deep, thinking over her options. The other girl had spent a lot of resources she could have used recruiting 'volunteers' from Vale to instead pitch and draw cards. Now her hand was full of counters and responses. She had apparently realized her luck with the cards had gone bad and was planning to just block them all and settle the final battle with brute force.

She felt her smug grin soften into a fonder smile. As expected of RWBY's leader. Weiss probably would have just doubled down but Ruby had realized something was wrong and taken decisive action. That sense was part of why it had gotten so easy to trust the girl to make life and death decisions in the field.

Ruby shifted and broke the eye contact Weiss had started, instead letting her eyes flicker to the board, then the bookcase, then the window. She'd done that a couple of times and the heiress had worried that she'd been found out, but Ruby never said anything so it must be something else.

Maybe boredom waiting for her turn. Wiess cleared her throat and sat back. She had been taking a while planning her moves.

But the plan was ready.

She pushed her damaged army, the Mistrali 3rd​, into contact with the closer of Ruby's armies in a doomed attack. Weiss didn't bother playing any cards into the battle, not with all the counters she'd just spotted. Instead, she let her army be destroyed, damaging some of Ruby's troops on the way out and, more importantly opened the way for her full strength army to rush past and capture the City of Vale proper from the neutral militia holding it. With no land connection to her capital and Ruby's armies occupying the rest of the kingdom the city wouldn't provide any economic bonuses, but the walls still worked just fine.

"The city is mine! Looks like I get to sleep in a bed tonight, while you're still roughing it in the woods." Weiss declared imperiously, standing and tilting back her head to stare down her nose at her opponent. "Of course, if you surrender now, I'm sure I can make room for you~"

She extended her arm to point at Ruby as she added 'in the dungeons, of course!' but the target of her taunting interrupted her by making a horrible choking sound. "Ruby?" Weiss asked instead, using her extended arm to pat the girl on the shoulder. "Are you ok? You weren't even drinking anything you dolt, how did you start choking!?"

"Nnrrgk" Ruby shrugged away from the shoulder pat, "I'm juuuust fine. I just wasn't, ahaha, expecting you to be so aggressive…" Ruby took in and blew out a deep breath as she sat up. "It's my turn now right?"

Weiss raised a skeptical eyebrow. What was all that? Her partner was acting bizarre. "It is," she agreed. "If you're sure you're ok…" she took her seat and gestured for Ruby to take her turn, raising her cards in front of her, ready to enact her plan.

Ruby reached out and shifted her armies, moving in with a pincer attack against the city. Vale's walls would help but Weiss's army had taken damage capturing it and she was badly outnumbered. Fortunately, the heiress had a plan. It relied on Ruby making the right counter-play, but Weiss knew her partner well and she thought the girl would.

"In response to your attack I play an Event" the heiress declared, setting a card on the table: Night Raids. The army targeted by it would have to roll a command test, with progressively larger negative effects the more they failed it by. "And since its a blind card, this is the army it's targeting." She smiled and laid a token face down next to the card.

Ruby snatched up Night Raiders, eyes flicking over it before setting it back down. She looked at Weiss with knit brows, but when their eyes met she glanced away.

"Have any response?" Weiss prompted.

"I do," she replied after a brief pause, "I'll err, free Vale or whatever" she declared, without much energy.

"are you sure you're ok Ruby?"

"Quiet!" oh, there was that energy. "I'll play Fortune favors Action! The target of your Event gets to roll twice and take the result of their choice for any tests the rest of the turn, and any enemy army that interacts with them has to do the same, but their opponent chooses!"

"I know what the card does, Ruby." Weiss declared, leaning forward and tempeling her fingers as her plan came together. "Ren won our last group game with it. As I recall, it was a rather expensive card"

"Resources don't win you the game sitting in your pocket." the younger girl declared, scooping up the bulk of the resource tokens off of her board and depositing them back in the bank. "Now, resolve your card, tyrant!"

Weiss flipped over the token next to her card and revealed a 4, her grin turning savage.

"Uhhh, Weiss?" the brunette blinked in confusion. "The Vacuoan 4th​ isn't deployed." she picked up the little army marker with a 4 printed on it off her board and shook it for emphasis. "I never even had 4 armies on the board!"

"Thats because I'm targeting the Mistrali 4th​~" she tapped her finger right next to her surrounded army in Vale City.

Ruby's arms flailed in surprise, "WHAT? But thats your own army, you ca-"

"You can't target your own armies with Maneuvers, Traps, or Attacks, but Events can target any army." She responded smugly, picking up a handful of dice and rolling two pairs of them, a 9 and a 5.

"Ok, but why?"

Weiss didn't answer, she simply looked at her dice and said, "I think I'll choose the five. I'm penalized on this card for the amount of Faunus unrest I've caused and since I conquered Menagirie, it looks like thats actually snake eyes. My army falls into Chaos and Confusion for the turn."

"So… you're doomed?" Ruby looked hopeful, yet confused.

"Nope~" Weiss popped the 'p'. "It's true that my army will be helpless until the end of the turn, but theres another effect of Chaos and Confusion that's relevant. Any Grimm units adjacent to an army that suffers Chaos and Confusion must immediately make control rolls as the negative emotions drive them mad." She tapped the board next to the pincer attacking armies "And since your armies are full of Grimm and you have to roll twice take the worst…"

"Oh no. OH NO! Oh Noooooooo!"

Ruby's armies tore themselves to pieces and the girl collapsed onto the table, moaning as she tasted defeat.

The victor stood, humming lightly as she basked in her conquests. "It was always going to end this way. Remnant belongs to me, your majesty." She extended her hand, hovering it before the defeated girl. "Its time to surrender and kiss the ring~"

The girl's shoulders jolted, but she sat there face down on the table for a long moment before slowly raising her head. She glanced back and forth between Weiss's hand and eyes, again and again, faster and faster.

Then she shut her eyes tight and pressed a kiss to the back of Weiss's hand.

Weiss had just long enough to think 'huh, she actually did it' before the door slammed open and an explosion of rose petals filled the study room.

"Ack!" Weiss shrieked in surprise. "Don't scare me like that you dolt!" But of course the dolt was long gone and couldn't hear her. She brushed a few petals off her uniform and sighed.

As the shock faded, a bit of worry and guilt started to gnaw at Weiss. She had sort of just cheated at the game. Had that been going too far? Ruby didn't bolt on her like that often, and she had been acting strangely toward the end of the game. Now that she was thinking about it, Ruby's face had been getting pretty red too. She gnawed at her lip, hoping she hadn't made her partner too angry.

She turned it over and over in her head and then, letting out a small sigh, she decided that after the show she would confess. It wasn't just cheating. Noticing the eye trick had been cool! She deserved to get one win for having discovered it! Weiss was pretty sure thats how ethics worked. And as soon as she had enjoyed that victory she would let Ruby know to wear sunglasses during card games from now on.

The knot of guilt that had been forming in her stomach untwisted itself, only to be replaced by anger.

"Hey! Did you just ditch me to pack up the game on my own?" she scolded the empty, flower petal covered room. "and are you expecting me to sweep all this up too??"


A/N- This may get one more revision pass before chapter 2