7: A Tale of Intervention

image [https://i.imgur.com/HuHyodh.png]

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The night was comfortable. A light breeze rolled by, but the air remained toasty and warm enough for anyone to step out and enjoy the dark evening. In the distance, the bustling of the city could be heard as usual. However, the movement of the water next to the pier she found herself on was loud enough to triumph over the city noises, providing a rather soothing ambience.

Ruby took her spot on top of one of the warehouses overlooking the pier. Due to the late hour, she found herself being the only sign of life around these parts, anyone else who might had been at the pier heading home to rest up for the next day.

Next to her, a pile of cardboard sat, five cans of spray paint and a full roll tape on top of it. Her back rested against a wall, her knees brought up close to her chest, a journal perched on top of them. While she waited for her new partner in crime, her pen scribbled across paper as she jotted down more ideas for a new story she worked on. Red headphones sat over her ears as music played through them at a moderate level.

“Best of us… can find happiness in mi~i~i~sery…” she quietly sang to herself, her head unconsciously bouncing to the rhythm of the song. “I said I… don’t… care what you think as long as it’s ab~out me…”

As she continued to write down the ideas bobbing in her head, she found herself lost in the imaginary world she had inadvertently created. She was so gone from reality, in fact, that there was no way she could have possibly noticed an orange haired, teenage, pink shirt wearing, cardboard carrying girl bend down next her and put her face only inches away from the side of her own, a large, goofy smile on the newcomer’s face.

Curiosity getting the best her, Nora peeks down at what Ruby found herself so entranced with. She ended up simply watching the young girl go for what seemed like a few moments, patiently waiting while Ruby continued to write. As she waited, Nora too found herself bouncing to the music slightly protruding from Ruby’s headphones.

“Neato~” Nora says, now snapping her fingers and doing a little dance where she knelt down.

She even eventually puts down the objects in her hand to get a better groove on. Heck, she even gets up, walks a few feet away and starts dancing even more, shaking her hips, twirling and everything. Yet, through all of this, Ruby still remained oblivious.

Eventually, even Nora became surprised by this and gave Ruby a perplexed look, a curious expression on her face, lips puckered up, brow risen. And then, at the moment, Nora got a great idea. Quickly moving back to Ruby’s side, she knelt down once again and put her face right up to Ruby’s cheek. She held her breath as to not alert the little girl too soon of her presence.

Nora’s mouth started to make funny shapes as she swirled her tongue around inside, making sure to get it nice and lubricated. Then, from the depths of her huge maw, a slimy, oozing tongue stuck out, a giggle almost escaping along with it. And then… well…

I must be honest with you, Nora was a very strange child.

image [https://i.imgur.com/3Juupgr.png]

As Nora’s slimy tongue glided across Ruby’s cheek, a shiver ran all throughout Ruby’s body, her silver eyes shrinking to mere dots in her sockets, mouth opening as if she wanted to scream her pants off. The pen in her hand slid from her grip to the ground, her notebook following suit. Every single hair on her body stood on end, her heart beat jumped up in pace dramatically. It was like time slowed down specifically for this moment, as Nora’s huge lick lasted for longer than it ever should have as her gooey body part slid across Ruby’s delicate, horrified little face.

Finally, after an agonizingly long moment of torture, the torment ends and Nora leans back, a cutesy little grin on her face as she awaited Ruby’s subsequent reaction. Slowly, the little red girl turned to the much more hyperactive teal eyed girl, a look of pure horror and ultimate disgust covering every inch of her face, a large salvia trail left on her cheek in the wake of Nora’s little prank.

For a solid fifteen seconds, two teens stare each other down, one with a huge smile plastered to her face, pleased by her “accomplishment”, the other utterly mortified by the Hell she just endured in that less-than-five-second moment that felt like an eternity. After a moment of silence passes, Nora does what she does best and breaks the ice in the only way someone like Nora could.

“Hi,” she says, lifting a hand and waving at Ruby. Ruby, in turn, continues to stare, absolutely frozen. Nora leans to the side to look around the redhead. “Oh goodie, you brought your arting tools! Looks like you’re all set to go, buddy o pal o mine!” Ruby continues to stare. “Welp, best not keep you waiting any longer, partner! Now that I have arrived, we can get on with the evening’s entertainment! Shall we get started?” More staring. “Excellent! Then let us be off! Whoosh!”

And with that, Nora runs off, leaving Ruby to stare into nothingness as her nightmare involving a large wet tongue begins it’s never ending reign of terror on her mind. A few seconds later, Nora runs back and picks up the child, slinging her over her shoulder.

“Come on!” she says excitedly as she carries Ruby off to partake in some old fashioned vandalism.

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7

A Tale of Intervention

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A knock is heard on the bedroom door. The blonde haired woman, without turning away from the computer screen answers, “Come on in.”

In walks Pyrrha, then Jaune, following close behind. Once he’s in, he gently closes the door and the two walk over to the desk Yang sat at. Blake took her spot atop Ruby’s bed, headphones over her ears. Her eyes connect with Pyrrha and Jaune’s, she giving a nod their direction. They return the greeting with a nod and a wave respectively.

“Anything happen?” Jaune decides to ask.

“Well, Nora just gave Ruby the licking of her life,” Yang answers, a bit of amusement evident in her tone.

Jaune nods. “Oh, okay… wait a minute, what?”

Blake shakes her head at him, a smirk on her lips. “Don’t worry about it. It’s hard to explain.”

“No it’s not. Nora just gave Ruby the tongue. What more needs to be said about that?” Yang asks.

“Okay, so it isn’t hard to explain, it’s just… weird.”

“No kiddin’…” Jaune says, scratching his head.

“What are they doing now?” Pyrrha asks.

“Well… from the spray paint I had to buy Ruby, the masks, and the cardboard, I’m guessing they are about to do some illegal graffiti art,” Yang answers matter-of-factly.

For a moment, no one says anything, Jaune and Pyrrha simply staring at the back of Yang’s head.

“…And you’re okay with this?” Pyrrha asks.

Yang shrugs. “If Ozpin, or, god forbid, Glynda finds about what I’ve been letting Ruby do the past two nights, this is the least of my worries.”

Pyrrha and Jaune turn to one another and shrug their shoulders at the same time.

“Go ahead and grab a pair of headsets, you two. Got a feeling things are about to get interesting…”

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She walks up to the large building they were just sitting atop of only moments ago, her materials underarm. Her smile hadn’t shrunk a bit as she inspected the blank wall that would soon feel the wrath of her creativity. There was a sort of twinkle in her eye as she barely contained the excitement of the fun she and her friend were going to have.

Speaking of whom, Nora speaks to Ruby, saying, “Alright, apple plum, it’s time to-“ She cuts herself off when she turns to the side only to find that Ruby was not standing next her. She curiously looks around, trying to spot the red girl. When she turns around completely, she finds who she sought out. “Oh, hey! What are ya’ doin’ all the way over there! You can’t unleash your creative explosion so far from the canvas!”

A ways away from Nora, Ruby hid behind a parked truck, peeking out slightly to give Nora an unamused, deadpan glare. It almost looked like a green aura resonated around her, like a shield to ward Nora off of her.

Nora puts her hands on her hips, taping her foot. “Well, come on! Don’t you still wanna have some fun?”

“I a-am not going anywhere n-near you!” Ruby responds.

“Well why not? You’re being weird! Stop being weird!”

“Who do you t-think you’re calling weird?! Did I lick your f-face like a p-popsicle just now? No! Did I run my gross, s-slimy, ungodly gooey tongue over your flesh like I was some z-zombie, or something? I don’t t-think so!”

“Is that all you’re worried about?”

“You say that as if you licking me isn’t supposed to be something I should worry about!

Nora sighs. “Okay-Okay. I promise no more licking. Really.”

“I can’t t-trust you! You might just do it again a-anyway!”

“I won’t~! Really! Would it help if I said you tasted really good?”

There is a moment of silence before Ruby responds. “…What kind of good?”

Nora puts her hand on her chin as she looks to the sky in deep thought. Finally, she comes up with a good answer. “Like love wrapped in cherry limeade, sprinkled with awesome sauce! Ooo~, and chocolate chip cookie dough!”

Another moment of silence before Ruby answers. “…Alright, I’m c-coming… But no more licking, Nora, s-seriously!”

Nora salutes. “Yes ma’am!”

Slowly, Ruby begins to come from around the truck carrying her own supplies for Nora’s little activity. Her hood remained on her head, headphones wrapped around her neck along with a black scarf. The whole time she walked over, her eyes were glued to Nora’s smiling form, watching for any sudden movements. Eventually, Ruby finds herself standing next to the licking girl, giving her a warning growl. Nora grins back. After that, the two turn to the large wall ahead.

“Okay, Nora,” Ruby starts, “So, I’m guessing we just… go at it then?”

Nora nods excitedly. “That’s~ right! Now, the secret to this is to go as far outside of the lines as you can! Don’t let them get in your way!”

Ruby gives Nora a confused look. “Wait, isn’t that what these cutouts are for? Then why’d I even make them if I’m just gonna go outside the boundaries?”

Nora shakes her head. “No-No-No! You paint inside the lines, silly!”

“Then how am I gonna go outside the-“

“Look, sugar plum.” Nora slings an arm around Ruby’s shoulder, making the girl jump from the sudden contact, she resisting the urge to teleport away. “It’s totally okay to use the lines and stuff. We wouldn’t have brought them if we weren’t gonna use em’, right? Just don’t let them stop your creative flow, you know?”

“Uh…”

“Okay-Okay, look at it like this. Say you finish your picture. All the lines are filled, you’ve finished your project. But then, when you step back and look at it, you say, ‘Oh no! It’s so pretty, but I really wanted to add this and this in there to make it even prettier! Oh man, and I wanted to add that to make it even prettierer! But I don’t have any more lines to follow to do that! Oh, what a cruel world!’ Well, have no fear young, big boobied artist friend, for you can still make your picture prettierer! By simply picking up your designated arting device, you can add anything you want and no one, nothing, and certainly no line can tell you otherwise, because it’s your art and your art only! Do you get what I mean now?”

Ruby stares wide eyed at Nora. “…Surprisingly, I actually do.”

“Good!” Nora releases Ruby from her grasp and begins to skip forward. “Then let us commence with the not-following of given lines while also following the given lines! Whoosh!”

Ruby spends another second watching Nora bounce off before shaking her head, a small smile on her lips. “Nora, you are a riot…” She walks forward, following Nora’s lead.

Nora has her hand on the wall, inspecting her large canvas with pondering eyes. When Ruby walks up, she turns to her and gives her a mischievous smile, shaking her spray can.

“So what do ya’ say, partner?” Nora asks, “You ready to really grind those jerk-wad’s gears?”

Ruby holds up her spray can, looking down at it. Her hand squeezes the can. Unknowingly to Ruby, a mischievous smile of her own starts to spread across her face as she looks back up to Nora.

Nodding her head, she says, “Let’s get creative…”

This make’s Nora’s already large smile grow even more. They both look up to their large blank canvas. Nora says, “Time to go to work!”

Masks are brought over mouths.

Tape is unraveled.

Cardboard is perched all over the blank wall.

Spray bottles rattle as they are shaken and spun in hand.

As the nozzle’s are squeezed, spray paint drags across the walls between the holes in the cut out pieces of cardboard. For a good few minutes, the two girls remain silent, fully focused on their own works of art.

image [https://i.imgur.com/eieXpNz.png]

image [https://i.imgur.com/EhLrX5x.png]

While Ruby took her time, carefully placing each stroke and line, Nora just… went ballistic, honestly. She didn’t know what Nora was supposed to be making, but Ruby had a feeling it was something that fit her personality. Either that or something really gross, but that’s the mystery of it all.

She didn’t even really know if she was making any progress or not, but she simply took her time. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure about what she wanted to make. The only thing she really could do was let the rhythm carry her on and hope for the best. She wasn’t expecting to come up with a masterpiece or anything, just something to fill up the canvas at least.

After a while, she found herself unable to add any extra details, her well of ideas running out for the moment. So, she takes a few steps back and inspects what she’d come up with so far. To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t too impressed by the output, evident by her puffing out a annoyed breath.

That was when Nora decided to pause in her happy fun time and join Ruby in looking at the art.

“Oooo~,” Nora… “ooo’s”.

On the wall, a rose petal sits. A single red petal, not too detailed, but clean and rather nice to look at. While Nora looked on with sparkling eyes, Ruby looked on with a look of disinterest. Nora catches this.

“What’s up? Don’t you like it?” Nora asks.

Ruby crosses her arms over her chest and groans. “Not really, no… It’s… nothing special. After all of that time, this is the only thing I could come up with.”

“Well…” Nora looks back to the drawing and ponders. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. I mean, sure it could use a bit more magic, but it’s not that bad, I think!”

“Yeah, well… To me ‘not that bad’ is code for ‘still kind of sucks’. I’m no good at this stuff.”

“Wrong!”

Ruby looks at Nora confused. “W-What?”

“That’s the wrong mindset to have! You can’t art with those kinds of thoughts, silly! You gotta open that big brain of yours and let the magic flow out! Everybody’s got a little awesome in them, you’ve just gotta dig deep and find it!”

Ruby sighs. “Yeah, easy for you to say, Nora. Not everybody can be as good as you are. I mean, you were over there having the time of your life. I bet whatever you drew is leagues better than…”

As Ruby looks around Nora to see the thing she’d been spending her time drawing… she deadpans and wishes she hadn’t.

“…Nora.”

“Ye~s?”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“No-No. Don’t you dare do this to me. Why did you draw that on the wall, Nora? Of all the things you could’ve drawn, why did it have to be that?”

“It was just my warm up drawing. I was having fun.”

“No, Nora. You were not just ‘having fun’. You were going to town on this thing, I saw you. What you did, Nora, was spend all your time drawing a… a…” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “…Pee Pee…”

From her earpiece, she could actually hear her sister burst out laughing like a maniac, most likely forgetting she had to keep her voice down, forcing Ruby to put her hand over her ear to try and obscure the sound.

“Oh my goodness…” Blake says. The funny thing was, Ruby could actually hear the black haired woman shaking her head.

“Jesus Christ, I love that kid! Can we keep her?” Yang says while still cracking up.

“Knowing you, I bet you’d draw the exact same thing.”

“You’re damn right I’d do that! Why the hell wouldn’t I do that?!”

“I’m with Yang, I’d draw this biggest dick I could with as much detail as possible,” Ruby can hear Jaune say.

“You two are so immature.” Ruby was sure Pyrrha said that.

After that, she can hear the sound of hands being clapped together. She knew for a fact that was Yang and Jaune exchanging high-fives. If she could, Ruby would slap her sister. And just for safe measure, she’d flick Jaune in the forehead.

“Nora, you can’t just go around and draw such obscene things on walls like that!” Ruby chastises Nora, ignoring the people talking in her ear.

Nora tilts her head. “Isn’t drawing on walls period something we shouldn’t be doing, though?

Ruby freezes.

“And didn’t you also just do something bad by drawing your rose petal on the same wall? So, technically, both of us are in the wrong, aren’t we?”

“Oh snap. Gotcha there, sis,” Yang says.

Ruby hangs her head in shame. “Oh my god, I’m a criminal…”

Nora wraps her arm around Ruby. “Aw, relax, chum! It’s not a crime unless you get caught.”

Ruby slowly looks up at Nora. “…That’s not how that works.”

“Shush! Too much logic’ll make your head hurt.”

“It also keeps me from doing stupid crap like this. But I find that my logical sense ceases to exist when I’m around you…”

“Okay, listen to this. This picture you got here? It isn’t bad. Not. At. All. But It could be better. It can always be better.” She teleports closer to the rose petal. “So I’ll tell you what: we’ll do this one together. I’ll put my picture aside to help you! We’ll make the coolest masterpiece ever, you and I! So what do ya’ say? Wanna get creative with me?”

Ruby looks down to the spray can in her hand. Giving it a tight squeeze, she looks back up at her picture with a readied gaze and nods.

“Good! Then let’s get to work.”

From there, Ruby walks up to Nora as the orange haired girl pulls her mask up and faces the picture. Ruby follows suit and pulls up her own mask. The two girls look at one another and nod. They bring up their spray cans and shake them, preparing to go to work.

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“W~OW! Would ya’ look at that, Rubes? I think you’ve just created a masterpiece here!” Nora exclaims excitedly.

Ruby takes the sleeve of her long red coat and wipes a bit of stray paint off her cheek. Her eyes then drift up to inspect this so called “masterpiece” she crafted. And, to be perfectly honest, for Ruby, that’s what it felt like as she looked upon her work.

On the large makeshift canvas, a giant red rose-like symbol took it place, looking as if it belonged there. It stood out marvelously against the rather lifeless plain wall of the building, so much so that it even seemed to be glowing.

The more she looked at it, the more her lips begin to tug upward into a big smile of pride. Despite the fact that what she and Nora were currently doing was completely illegal, Ruby couldn’t bring herself to worry about the repercussions if she were to ever get caught. Heck, at least then people would know who created this work of art.

…Then again, that would probably mean a lot of press and attention was something the redhead would rather avoid at all cost, so…

That being said, Ruby still continued to smile brightly. “Yeah… I think I like it, too, Nora…”

The orange haired girl hops over closer to Ruby, hands behind her back. “So~? What’re you gonna call it?”

Ruby gives her a confused glance. “Huh?”

She points to the large stencil art. “The picture, silly. Every masterpiece needs a name. Y’know, something that’ll be remembered in time.”

“O-Oh, right. A name…” Looking back to art, Ruby ponders on what kind of title would fit her finished creation.

Seeing as how she wasn’t really thinking about it, the redhead expected choosing a title would take a while. However, to her surprise, the choice actually wasn’t that difficult. It hit her like a ton of bricks the moment her eyes landed on her art.

So, a warm smile on her face, she says, “The Summer Rose…”

Nora looks to Ruby curiously. “The… Summer Rose…? Where’d you come up with that one?”

She sighs to herself. “…I dunno… Just thought it sounded right… A name remembered in time…” She fiddles with her long hair. “Summer Rose… Yeah… that’ll do it…”

Nora looks back to the art. Then, she too begins to smile wide. “Summer Rose it is then. I think it’s perfect.”

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“Num-Num-Num-Num-Num!”

That was the sound of Nora going to town on a ham sandwich, almost all of it being fit into her mouth at once. In fact, with how much she bit off, one has to wonder why she didn’t just finish off the poor thing and save the hassle of two bites.

Or, at least, that was most certainly what Ruby was thinking as she watched in horror as Nora finished off her seventh (yes, seventh) sandwich in a row. Meanwhile, she was still on the first half of her second one. The only reason Nora had still been on her seventh was due to the fact that she would talk so much that she would forget to eat.

And what she was talking about didn’t really make any sense anyhow (shocker).

All the while, Ruby did her best to decipher what Nora was saying as she witnessed the spectacle that was Nora eating food. Just as Nora was preparing to devour her eighth sandwich in a row, she pauses her carnage and finally notices Ruby staring at her unblinking. She tilts her head at the young girl.

“Ruby?”

Having her name called, Ruby snaps out of her stupor and looks alert. “Oh, uh, y-yes, Nora?”

“Is… something wrong?”

“What? What do you…?”

“You’ve been staring at me like that for a while now. Do you not like the sandwich?”

“Wha…? Oh, no-no, it’s not that…!”

“I’m sorry if you don’t like ham. I didn’t know what you ate, so I just winged it and hoped for the best.”

“No, Nora, it’s fine, the sandwiches are fine. It’s just… How can you eat so much?”

She looks on confused. “What do ya’ mean?”

“Nora, you just sat there and ate seven whole sandwiches without batting an eye. And you’re about to take on your eighth. Do you have a vortex in your tummy, or something?”

Nora swallows the food in her mouth and shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe. I’ve always had a big appetite. Well, that and I just really like food. Y’know, when I can get it anyway. I don’t really get why your surprised, though. You have a big belly, too.”

Ruby, a blush of embarrassment on her cheeks, puts her hands over her stomach, covering herself. “H-Hey! Are calling me fat?”

“No-No, silly! I mean you like to eat a lot of food, too! I know it!”

“N-No I don’t!”

“Uh-hu, do too! We’re the same Ruby, I know you like put stuff in your mouth! You just don’t, because you think it makes you look fat to others. Well, I say screw em’! You eat what you wanna eat and like it! That’s why I brought so much food tonight. You can eat as much as want until you barf!”

Ruby takes a quick glance down at her stomach, giving it a little poke, a bit of an annoyed look on her face, lip poked out. She looks back up at Nora. “Why do you have a backpack full of ham sandwiches anyway?”

“I figured you’d be hungry after our little session of fun time, so I made some snacks when we finished doing the do.”

“Snack? You call this a snack?”

“You act like this is a lot of food, or something.”

Ruby slowly turns her head over to the backpack on the building rooftop, seeing plenty more bagged sandwiches spewing out of it. She then slowly looks back to her own sandwich. “Gee, couldn’t imagine why… How you’d even get all the stuff to make these things?”

Ruby looks up, expecting to receive an answer from the younger girl. However, Nora had instead turned her head to the sky, acting like she didn’t hear what Ruby had asked, slowly chewing her food, very much contradicting how she was just eating moments before.

At first, Ruby isn’t too sure why Nora was acting that way. However, it is very soon when she is able to put two and two together and her eyes widen.

“Nora, you didn’t happen to…”

Nora, instead of answering, continues to keep her eyes averted from Ruby’s, like a child that knows they did something wrong and their parents had caught them redhanded. Rather than push the subject even further, Ruby decides to slowly insert her sandwich in her mouth and take a bite out of it.

As she swallowed, the redhead remember the question she was meant to ask in the first place. “Nora… the other day… there was this building that had been completely demolished. The police, though, had no idea who was responsible for the vandalism.”

Nora looks to Ruby.

“After I fainted… You know, when we first met? I was too busy screaming at you to ask, but… you mentioned something about ‘leaving your mark on the meanie faces’ just like me… Nora, that building being destroyed wasn’t because of you was it?”

The young girl tilts her head, pondering for a moment. “‘Building being destroyed’…? Hmm, I don’t really… Wait-Wait… Oh! I remember now! It was the one with those jerk faces inside! Yeah-Yeah! That was totally me!”

Ruby’s eyes widen. From the other side of her hidden earpiece, she could hear Yang spit out some kind of drink.

Nora nods. “Uh-huh! I definitely remember that now! While you were busy taking your nap, I had to go take care of some business! Sure taught those guys a lesson, hehe!”

Ruby, still surprised by Nora’s blunt confession, tries to compose herself and speak. “N-Nora, you caused all that damaged? D-Do you know you could have seriously hurt some innocent person with what you did?”

“Relax, silly, I wouldn’t do that! No one was in there except those meanie faces, nobody was in any danger. Those guys have been using that place as a meeting spot for a few weeks now and I just thought it was about time I crashed their little party, y’know?”

This catches Ruby’s attention. “Wait… you knew they were in there for a while?”

“Of course! I know a lot of spots they hang out at! For example!” She points to the warehouse the two girls just finished putting their mark on. “Sometimes, they meet up here to do their ‘dirty deeds’. When they see what we’ve done to the place, they’re gonna freak out! We let em’ know that we have them in our sights, scare em’ up a little. And then, when they’re all freaked out and stuff, we swoop in and go ‘Kaplow!’ ‘Blam!’ ‘Smack!’ Get it?”

By now, Ruby’s mouth was hanging open.

“You look like someone who gets it and I think that’s wonderful!”

“…Well, I mean, I guess we got her, so… mission accomplished, guys,” Blake says through the earpiece.

Ruby snaps out of her stupor. “Nora, I… Have you been targeting these guys specifically?”

Nora nods. “Yep! In fact, I’ve been doin’ this a while now. It was just hard to really find them. However, after what you did, I was able to start finding more and more of their little hideouts and snag em’! I wanted to be just like you, y’know? Justice and all that good stuff?”

“But why? Why are so intent on attacking these guys? Why would you want to do this?”

“Because I have to, silly!”

“But why do you have to?”

At that, Nora’s smile shrinks, her eyes looking more uneasy. “B-Because it’s the right thing to do. This is a good thing.”

“Nora, you aren’t understanding what I’m asking. Why do you have to do this? All of this fighting, this vandalism, whatever you’re doing. Are you just trying to follow my example, or something? Get in on the action?”

Nora’s smile had become nervous, shaky. “No, that… that isn’t…”

“Is it just for some kind of thrill? Like last night with the free running?”

Her smile is gone now. Her eyes are on the floor. “No, it’s n-not like that-“

“Then what, Nora? What is it you’re after? How are you and these guys connected? Why are you doing all of-“

“Because they’re bad people, Ruby!”

Ruby finds herself jumping back as Nora’s screams. Her scream didn’t even sound like it belong to her, demonic in nature, powerful. Unlike how she usually is, this loud side of her was more… frightening. As Ruby stares wide eyed, Nora breaths hard.

“Bad people… have to be punished, Ruby! Bad people don’t get to be happy! People who hurt other people… have to be hurt! People who take away others don’t deserve any mercy! Monsters who take away friends don’t deserve any sympathy! They torture and kill! They… take poor, lost people off of the streets and make them do bad things! Orphans, run aways, people without families…! They don’t care! All they care about is themselves! And then… And then when they’re finished with us, they just… get rid of us!”

Ruby says nothing as Nora screams and yells.

“Bad people… have to be punished… okay…? You know that… don’t you…?”

Ruby noticed, once again, that Nora’s hand reaches up to the metallic ring on her ear. Whether Nora noticed was a whole other question entirely. As the young girl breaths where she sits, Ruby slowly straightens herself up and cautiously approaches Nora.

Her hand reaches out and brushes Nora’s shoulder. “N…Nora…?”

The orange haired girl flinches and looks up at Ruby as if having been awoken from a slumber. Ruby looks on, a mixture of worry and fear on her face.

“A…Are you… Are you okay…?”

She looks lost, as if she couldn’t process why Ruby would ask something like that. She looks around herself like she forgot where she had been. And then, just like that, Nora goes back to smiling. However, unlike her other large, bright smiles, this one seemed forced, fake, cracked.

She nods. “O-Oh, y-yeah, totally! E-Everything’s A-okay!” She suddenly lifts herself to her feet and backs away from Ruby slowly. “Y-You know, we should call it a night, huh? I’m sure you’re w-worn out from today’s f-fun time, right? We’ll, uh, we’ll meet up tomorrow, okay? Our fun isn’t over j-just yet!”

Ruby rises, reaching out to Nora. “Nora, hang on-“

“I-I’ll see you around, buddy! Have a… good night, okay?”

“Nora!”

And just like that, she vanishes from sight, leaving Ruby alone on the top of the harbor warehouse in the lukewarm night, only the sounds of the calm waters keeping her company. She stares at the spot Nora was in just a moment ago.

“…O~kay. That was… unexpected…” Yang says through the earpiece.

Ruby slowly lowers her hand. “You’re telling me…”

“I guess we have out confirmation now, don’t we?” Blake speaks up.

“Seems like it to me, kitty cat. Didn’t think it would be so easy though.”

“Or escalate so quickly.”

“Zero to one hundred real quick, huh?”

“Something like that, yes…”

Ruby turns around and notices that the bag of sandwiches Nora brought along was still in the same spot, along with the spay cans the two brought along. She walks over to the pile of supplies and bends down over Nora’s can, taking it in hand and expecting it. She notices a line of tape had been strapped to the bottom of the can. On it, a crudely drawn wink face with it’s tongue out was placed on it. Just like the signature Nora put on her artwork.

“Hey, Rubes? You hear me?”

At the sound of Yang’s voice, Ruby returns to reality. “W-What?”

“Come on back home. We’re gonna call it a night on this one. You did good, kid.”

“Oh… O-Okay. I’ll… be back soon.”

Standing, she prepares to head for home. Before that, she takes one last look at where she and Nora sat and at the bag of sandwiches Nora prepared for them. That’s when she walks over and gathers all of the bagged sandwiches into the backpack. After that, she gathers up all the spray cans in her arms. That’s when she notices one more item. The purple mask Nora wore while working on her art. She decides it best to take that up as well.

Yang’s voice rings through the earpiece. “By the way, you realize what you did tonight was totally illegal, right?”

Ruby freezes up and sighs, hanging her head. “…We never of speak of this to Mr. Ozpin.”

“Kid, as far as I know, you were in bed the entire time this happened.”

Ruby chuckles at that. After, she teleports from sight, heading home for the night, sandwiches and supplies in hand after one strange night of arting.

----------------------------------------

“The way I see it, we’ve got all the confirmation on Nora that we need,” Yang says, taking a bite out of her sandwich. “Now it’s just about tagging and bagging her. And we’re gonna do it the very next time Ruby and Nora meet: tomorrow night.”

“You sure? Is what we learned tonight going to be enough to bring her in?” Blake asks.

“She outright confessed to not only wrecking that store, but also being responsible for other incidents like this. We even know why she’s been causing all this damage. Now it’s about getting the kid in cuffs and hauling her off to the chief’s office.”

The minute Ruby returned home, her sister got right down to business about the night’s events and what was discovered. And, besides Blake, she once again came home to other guests in the apartment, Jaune and Pyrrha once again stopping by for the night to discuss any newfound information and everything that happened between Ruby and Nora.

The redhead herself, however, was in no mood to contribute to the plan to catch Nora. The minute she entered the home, she discarded her shoes and crawled into bed, leaning against the wall, back to the other bedroom occupants. Her attention, rather than being on the conversation at hand, was on the cloth in her hand; the same one Nora used for their “arting” session.

She had stuffed as many of the sandwiches Nora made into the fridge as possible, offering the rest that wouldn’t fit to anyone that wanted one. She didn’t want to waste the food Nora had so kindly made for her (even though it was stolen anyway). Everyone took a sandwich expect for Blake.

Pyrrha lowered her head a bit. “Do we have to regard her so harshly? I mean, is arresting her really necessary?”

“Uh, yeah, kind of,” Yang says while sitting on her own bed. “When the police say ‘you’re under arrest’ we can just assume there’s a reason for that. Well, usually, I guess. The kid’s done some bad stuff, she’s gotta do her time.”

“I just think… maybe there’s… something else that can be done? I mean, from everything we’ve witnessed, does she truly seem like that bad of a person?”

“Doesn’t matter what she ‘seems’ like, Pyrrha. You don’t just destroy buildings and beat dudes up and not get in trouble. That’s just how it is.”

“But, uh, to be fair, taking Pyrrha’s side for a second,” Jaune says, licking his fingers of excess mustard. “The only people she really hurt were the dude’s in suits who are, by far, bigger criminals than she ever will be.”

“True as that may be, dude, that still doesn’t excuse any of her actions. She may be the lesser evil, but she’s still a problem.”

“Oh come on, Yang, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It matters what I was told to do.”

“Implying you don’t necessarily agree with treating Nora like a criminal.”

Yang turns to Blake who just spoke up. The blond sighs. “Look… I’m gonna be straight with you guys: I’m not saying I see the kid as some big time criminal, or anything, especially not compared to the jerks in suits if what I heard about them is true.”

“Which brings up another question of mine. Why are these men in suits you speak of so bad?” Blake asks. “I was never filled in on what exactly makes them the criminals you claim them to be.”

Jaune perks up. “Well, actually-“

“I’ll… fill you in later. Just not now,” Yang says, cutting off Jaune, causing him and Blake to give her a curious look. Yang ignores the looks and continues with what she was saying. “I had to indirectly deal with Nora alongside Ruby, too. To me, if I’m being honest, Nora’s just a really weird kid. Like, I mean, a really weird kid, with… the occasional tendencies to get a bit destructive. Hell, she kind of reminds me of another kid in my life, just taken to the extreme.” At that, she eyes Ruby’s unmoving form with a smile.

She goes serious again. “Honestly… I don’t see anything wrong with her… but that doesn’t change what she’s doing. She’s gotta be stopped. No matter her intentions, her execution just isn’t gonna fly. And, as a Junior Huntress, I was given the job to help bring her in. When I got the job, I really didn’t expect to get so involved with this. If Ruby hadn’t convinced me to go along with her plan, I probably would have just nabbed her on the spot, been done with it. Now… I kinda wish I did…”

“Because you don’t really care about the case anymore… do you?” Blake asks as if reading the blonde’s mind.

Yang sighs. “Something’s up with her. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’ve had to deal with this kind of thing before… I probably wouldn't have known…”

Pyrrha nods. “I… agree, Ms. Xiao Long. There’s something more to Nora than meets the eye and tonight’s meeting only reinforced that sentiment. She’s troubled and she’s hiding it.”

Jaune snorts at that. “Yeah, well, she isn’t too good at doin’ that, I’ll tell you what.” He puts the rest of his sandwich in his mouth.

This causes Pyrrha, Blake, and Yang to, once again, stare at him. Which, in turn, causes him to freeze and look back awkwardly.

“What do you mean by that, Jaune?” Pyrrha asks.

Jaune slowly swallows his sandwich and clears his throat. “Uh… W-Well, I mean… Nora isn’t really trying to hide anything. What about Nora’s personality have we seen thus far suggests she’s the kind of kid who hides what she feels? Heck, you heard it yourself, if Ruby had pushed any further, Nora would have spilled the beans on everything that minute. It was only because Ruby got so scared that Nora got enough time to compose herself. She’s not hiding anything, she just hasn’t out right said what she feels.”

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Blake leans forward, interested in the ideas Jaune brought to the table. “So, what, are you saying that Nora is telling us what’s going on, but we just haven’t figured it out?”

He scratches his head. “I’m saying everything we need to know is right in front of us and Nora is the only one who hasn’t figured it out. She isn’t the kind of person that lies to others. She’s the kind of person who’d lie to herself.”

The three girls look at Jaune wide eyed, honestly surprised by how much insight the usually clueless boy was giving out. Jaune laughs nervously.

“I… honestly thought that was obvious.”

“Jaune… How did you come to this conclusion?” Blake asks.

He shrugs. “I dunno, I… just listened I guess. You’d be surprised how open people actually are about things if you just listened to what they’re actually saying. I’m, uh… not the best talker, but I’m a hell of a listener I think. And growing up with seven sisters helps, too.”

“You have seven sisters?” Pyrrha asks.

“It was a constant nightmare.”

All of the sudden, Yang smacks her head into her palm and groans loudly. Everyone looks on curious.

“Yang, what’s wrong?” Blake asks.

She shakes her head. “I’m a moron, that’s what.”

“Why would you say something like that?”

“Because I think I just figured everything about Nora out, and it took me this long to do it.”

Blake and Pyrrha look on surprised. “W-Wait,” Pyrrha says. “You mean… you know what’s going on with Nora?”

“I think so. And I wanna hit myself for not figuring it out sooner. And I’m gonna gander that you did, too, huh, Arc?”

He looks down. “I honestly hope I’m wrong, but… I think I did after her little freak out tonight.”

“Well, does anyone wanna fill us in on this theory of yours?” Blake asks.

“Yes, some answers would be much appreciated. What exactly have you two figured out all of the sudden?”

“Her story…”

All eyes besides Yang’s turn to the voice that spoke up after all this time. They all look to the corner of Ruby’s bed, where the girl herself sat, back to the crowd, playing with the mask in her hands.

“All the pieces are on the table now… all that’s left is to put them together. And when you do… you get her story… The truth about who she is, why’s she doing this… You get a glimpse into the storm that is Nora…”

“That’s why you’ve been moping around over there, sis?” Yang asks her sister. “You come to the same conclusion Jaune and I did?”

“The moment she left me alone in the harbor… I got this chill… It was a chill that made me realize something… It made me realize what connected us…”

“And what exactly would that be?”

“We’ve been in each other’s shoes… And we’ve been lost in them, too…” That’s when Ruby slowly turns to the group. “Yang’s right… tomorrow has to be the night. We end this then. I have a feeling Nora isn’t going to take it too well, though. So if we’re gonna do this, I’m going to need some help…”

----------------------------------------

As usual, the night was warm. The night owls have come out to roam the streets. Just like any other night, everything was the same. And just like her most recent two nights, Ruby found herself, once again, awaiting the arrival of the orange haired girl.

However, something has changed this particular night. Rather than waiting on a rather unfamiliar rooftop as she did before, she now sat on top of her most familiar setting, one she was able to become quite acquainted with over the past two years: her very own apartment building rooftop. Her red hood was pulled over her head, her head being buried in the knees brought up to her chest as her back rested against the rooftop exit.

The truth was, she’d actually been wandering around outside for a few hours now. While her sister tried to convince her to stay indoors until the time of the meeting approached, she found herself too anxious to stay still for more than a minute. So, in an attempt to calm her nerves, she came up to the roof to maybe shake out the jitters. After a while with no success, she ended up sitting down and waiting for the inevitable meet up. And time couldn’t possibly go any slower for her. Minutes felt like an eternity, and the closer she came to the end of the counter, the slower time would crawl.

Her stomach was absolutely doing summersaults by now. She honestly didn’t even know what exactly she was afraid of; this final meet up with Nora, or how it will end?

Well, she’d find out very soon. Because she could feel her coming. It was about that time.

She didn’t even need to lift her head. The sound of Nora’s feet softly hitting the ground was more than enough to wake her up.

“Hi, Ruby!” she called out to the redhead.

Ruby bit her lip from under her hood, not quite ready to look at the girl.

“Yo! Ruby! What gives, what’s up with the pouty look?”

She approached her. She felt her getting closer. The closer she came, the more her stomach hurt. Ruby swallows saliva, almost having second thoughts about going through with this.

“Ru~by! Come on sleepy head, rise and shine! Time to perk up, buddy! Come on!”

Nora was only mere inches away now, poking at Ruby’s balled up form. It was now or never. Time was up. No more hiding.

So, breathing in deep, she slowly lifts her head, roaming up Nora’s features, starting from her bare feet, going up to the abdomen, and ending at her large, teal eyes. She flinches slightly. “H…Hey, Nora…”

The teal eyed girl puts her hands on her hips, taking on a mock disappointed face. “What was that? That isn’t the super awesome hello I was hoping for. Where’s the spunk you had those other nights? Where’d that Ruby go, huh?”

“S-Sorry. Guess I’m… just a little out of right now… that’s all.”

“Well snap back into it, pal! We’ve got a night of fun ahead of us and I finally figured out just what we’re gonna be doing! You’re gonna like this one, I can tell!” She turns away from Ruby and points to the sky. “Now, come my noble partner in crime! Let us be off as we venture to our next exciting adventure!” She begins to sprint for the edge of the building.

Ruby, however, makes no move to follow, her eyes falling to the ground, narrowing, her hands balling around the sleeves of her jacket.

As Nora runs forward, she looks back to see that Ruby hadn’t made a move, causing her to slow to a stop and turn to the girl. Her head tilts to the side, and her face takes on a slightly worried expression. She begins to jog back over to Ruby.

“Hey~” Nora calls out. “What’s the matter, Ruby?” When she reaches the silver eyed girl, she bends down in front of her. “Not feeling good?” Her hands lifts to Ruby’s forehead. “You sick, or somethin’?”

Ruby shakes her head. “No, I’m not sick…”

Nora pulls her hands back. “Then what’s up? Why do ya’ look so down in the dumps? Are you angry at me for running off last night?”

“No, Nora, I’m not angry. But…” She breaths out. “It… Does have something to do… with yesterday, though.”

“Is it because I drew something really bad on the wall?”

Ruby sighs. “No, Nora, it’s not that…”

“If it makes you feel any better, I totally went back and cleaned that picture up since you hated it so much. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Nora, I’m not mad about the picture… Although, I do appreciate you doing that.”

“Then what’s up, Ruby? Why the long face?”

She looks at Nora through the side of her eye. “Um… Well… I sort of have this question for you, Nora, but… I’m not really sure how to go about asking it. And I’m really afraid of making you mad, so I-“

Nora holds out her hand, cutting Ruby off. “Stop right there. That’s what this is all about? You’re afraid of asking some stupid question?”

“Well, I…”

“Shame on you, Ruby! Don’t you know by now what kind of friend you’re dealin’ with? You really think I’m gonna get mad over a question?” She stands up tall, chest out. “Come on! Give me more credit than that! I have nerves of steel! It’s gonna take a lot more than that to get under my skin!”

“Nora, you don’t-“

“Nuh-uh! I don’t wanna hear it! Ruby, you never need to be afraid to talk to me about anything! We’re friends after all, right? We can talk about anything, can’t we?”

Ruby looks to the ground, her finger tracing it. “…Yeah. We can…”

“Good! Then all’s well that ends well!” She turns and makes some distance between herself and Ruby, marching off. “Now, go on, ask thine question! What is it you require answers about, squire?”

Ruby swallows saliva. “…Um… Well… Nora… I just wanted to ask you… something about your friend. You know… this ‘Ren’ person…?

Nora freezes. Her body goes completely stiff as she slows to a dead halt, her arms slowly falling to the side. Slowly, she turns back to Ruby, her smile completely vanishing now, a more nervous look taking it’s place.

“Nora… I really didn’t want this to be true… But after last night… I think I figured something out about you… About… your friend… About Ren…”

Nora continues to stare, now turning to face Ruby completely.

Ruby slowly looks up to Nora, worried eyes shadowed by her hood and dangling long red hair.

“…He’s dead… isn’t he…?”

It was as if all the noise of the world ceased to exist. It was like, at that moment, on that rooftop, Nora and Ruby were the only two people left in the world as the two stared into one another’s eyes, Nora’s wide and dilated, sweat running down her face, Ruby’s stern, but nervous.

----------------------------------------

The Previous Night

----------------------------------------

“This Ren person… the one she apparently talks to… he’s dead.”

Pyrrha and Blake’s eyes widen. Jaune takes on a pained expression, as if he knew it was coming, but didn’t want to hear the words. Yang made no signs of even having registered what Ruby was saying, her face devoid of emotion.

Pyrrha shakes her head. “Ruby… how did you even come to that conclusion? And such a drastic one at that.”

Ruby fiddles with the hair hanging over shoulder. “Honestly… it wasn’t until Nora freaked out on me that the pieces started to fall into place. But when they did, it all started to make sense. Why she was doing what she was doing, why she talks to Ren as if he were right next to here, why she freaked out last night; everything made sense.”

Pyrrha turns to Jaune. “And Jaune, you knew this, too?”

He scratches his head, not looking at the older redhead. “I had a feeling, but… I was honestly kind of hoping I was alone in this regard.”

Blake looks to the blonde sitting on her bed crosslegged. “And Yang, you came to the same conclusion as well?”

Instead of talking, Yang simply nods slowly.

“Her grudge against the black suited men; that was something we all wanted a reason behind. It didn’t make sense,” Ruby continues. “Why would Nora try and target those guys of all people? At face value, it could just seem like Nora was trying to get some thrill out of fighting bad guys, wanting to emulate what we did. Or maybe she just so happened to have hit spots where those guys hung out at. I don’t know, they all seemed like pretty likely reasons, but… they just didn’t… fit.”

She pulls her other knee up close to herself. “But then she brought up Ren. And that’s when the gears started turning. It was like a seed had been planted, and her freak out was the fertilizer that grew it into a full grown idea. And then… I started remembering… back when I dealt with those guys…” She shudders, holding herself tight.

“I, uh… I saw it first hand, too, sort of…” Jaune cuts in, saving Ruby from having to go into any more detail. “Those guys, they… take Fauna off the streets and use them for labor, or something like that. They enslave them for something, but… they don’t just go after any ol’ Fauna. They go after ones that no one would care about if they do go missing. Ones without families, homes, or purposes. I remember Weiss had told me…”

He pauses. “She was telling me about Mel… About… the girl who lost her life in the forest… and all the others who were found in that same shack.” Jaune looks over and sees Ruby covering her ears with her hands, her hood pulled down. After giving her a sympathetic gaze, he continues. “None of those people… They didn’t have any friends, or family, or even last names from what records showed. Hell, some of them didn’t even have first names. The names they had were apparently ones given to them… Those people- and I really hate saying this- But if it weren’t for us getting involved… there’s a chance those people would have disappeared from the face of Remnant… and no one would have even batted an eye…”

Pyrrha covers her mouth in horror. Jaune takes a look over at how the others were taking the information. Blake’s expression made him jump a little. It was almost exactly the same look she gave Pyrrha the first time the two met, only this time, rather than pure malice, there’s a mixture of pure disgust and horror. He could swear the woman was shaking where she sat. He could definitely see her hand gripping the blankets of Yang’s bed so hard that her knuckles turned stark white.

Yang reaches her hand out and it lands on the black haired woman’s shoulder.

Jaune, stomach hurting now more than ever, forced himself to continue. “So…” He swallows hard. “So I… I got to thinking… if these guys take people like those Fauna off the streets like that… what’s stopping them from doing the same to other kinds of people? Orphans, homeless, the purposeless? They don’t care so long as they get what they want, right? So what’s to say they only do that to Fauna…?”

Pyrrha shakes her head. “Dear Gods…”

He nods. “Human, Fauna; it’s all the same to them. And that’s when things get a little grim…”

“Nora is hunting these guys down.” This time, all attention is given to Yang, who finally joins in on the conversation. “There’s no denying it now, she is doing her damnedest to find every single one of these assholes and make them pay their just dues. Tonight confirmed that. And we definitely know now that she’s doing this not just for a quick thrill, but with a vengeance, with a purpose. Now the question is: what is that purpose? What kind of score would this kid wanna settle with these guys so bad? What could they have done to piss her off this much?”

“I fear I know where you’re going with this, Ms. Xiao Long…” Pyrrha says.

Yang nods. “She was one of those unlucky kids that got snagged up. There was a time she was in the exact position the poor girl Melody found herself in; trapped, scared, and lost with no one to help her. Well… almost no one…”

“Ren…”

“We know that family Melody was with wasn’t even her real family. That’s what Ozpin told me. They were just people who found themselves in the same messed up situation and decided to try and survive together. What’s to say Nora and this Ren person she talks about didn’t do the same thing? Wouldn’t you cling to anyone who didn’t wanna beat the piss out of you if you were in their situation? So these lost kids meet, they cling to each other, they rely on each other to survive… And then things get bad… We can’t say for sure what happened, and we may never really know.. But one of them didn’t make it out of the situation alive… and we know how that story ends.”

By this time, Pyrrha had to sit down on Ruby’s bed, a hand on her stomach, a look of pure horror on her face.

“…There’s a lot to this story we don’t know… A lot of details we may never find out… And honestly, this is all just a theory, really… But one thing is for damn sure… If any of this is true… and we end up being right on the money… then Nora’s dealing with some serious shit… and she definitely isn’t handling it well…”

----------------------------------------

Present Day

----------------------------------------

She stares Ruby down with a look of fear and confusion. She trembled slightly, her legs wobbling beneath her. Ruby had stood up from her position on the ground, pulling her hood down, looking Nora back in her eye.

“It’s true, isn’t it…?” Ruby asks. “And you know it is… don’t you…? You’ve always known… You know now… Ren isn’t here, Nora… He’s been gone for a long time…”

Nora takes a step back. “T… That’s not true…”

“You say that, Nora, but you and I both know that it is… Ren has been dead for a long time now and you’ve always known that.” She takes a step forward.

Nora takes a step back. “You’re lying…”

“Am I, Nora? Or is it you lying to yourself?” She steps forward.

She steps back. “S-Stop it…!”

“You talk to him as if he were still here, like he’s always next to you every minute of the day, like he answers back, like he’s there! But that’s only your mind trying to cope with the fact that Ren is no longer with you and you can’t accept that!” Forward.

Back. “Stop it!”

“You always told me what wasn’t good for me, that you knew exactly what I’ve been going through, what I’ve been dealing with! Well, you were right, Nora. You did understand me. You scarily got me! Well I understand, too, Nora. I understand what it’s like to be scared, what it’s like to not want to accept reality. And I honestly know when something is hurting you and not helping you. And, Nora, this is hurting you! You lying to yourself like this is only making things worse!”

“SHUT UP!”

The scream echoed, even more powerful than the one from the night before. Ruby could actually feel the air leaving her lungs from the impact of Nora’s fury against her chest. She stared on, senses flaring up. Nora stared back, body trembling, teeth grit, fist balled.

“You don’t know anything! You know nothing about me! How could you possibly understand anything about me, or my friend! Who the hell are you to act like you know anything about…!”

As Nora trails off from her rant, Ruby looks even more alarmed and confused.

“…You’re with them…”

“W-What…?” Ruby asks.

“You’re one of them… You’re… You’re one of the monsters…”

When she figured what Nora was talking back, she shakes her head. “Nora, wait-“

“You’re trying to take me back…!”

“Nora, no, it isn’t like that! I’m only trying to help you before-“

“No! I should have known better than to trust you! I should never have trusted anybody! All they ever do is hurt me! Well not this time…! Not again!”

Nora slowly lowers to all fours, teeth bared, a snarl escaping her lips. Ruby prepares herself for the worse.

“Never again…!”

“Nora, no…! Ruby pleads.

image [https://i.imgur.com/mWpVJHU.png]

She readies herself to pounce. Ruby backs away, fearing what was to happen next, ready to maneuver.

“I’d rather die… before I let you take me back there!”

She dashes at Ruby fast. Ruby’s eyes widen at how fast Nora took off for her, about to take the defensive and teleport. However, just as Nora was about to close the gap between them, a familiar blonde figure swoops down in between the two girls and plants her feet into the ground hard, hands out.

Nora, not even realizing someone new had joined the fray. Jumps through the air and extends out to attack. At the moment, her hands are caught in the pair owned by Yang, who glares back at the snarling orange haired girl, sparks flying between the two.

“Alright, that’s enough of that, kid!” Yang says, not budging from her spot as she and Nora struggle with one another. “You’re gettin’ a little too frisky for my liking!”

Nora growls, trying to free herself from Yang’s unyielding grasp. However, Yang actually found herself struggling to keep hold of the child, gritting her teeth in concentration. Having enough of that, Nora jumps up and sends her feet into Yang’s chest, causing the woman to let go and free the girl, who flips back and away, landing on all fours.

“Yang!” Ruby calls out in worry.

“Okay, not gonna front, that was a pretty good kick there,” Yang says, rubbing her chest.

At that moment, the rooftop door bursts open and the three others apart of the group pour outside. Pyrrha, Jaune, and Blake all rush out, instantly planting their eyes on Nora, who looks around the crowd, still angered, but also weary of the newcomers.

“Hey, Yang, we heard the commotion!” Jaune says. “Things go bad?”

“‘Bout as bad as we predicted, honestly,” she says, straightening up, taking a readied fighting stance.

“You okay?” Blake asks.

“I’ll be fine. Kid just caught me good there, that’s all.”

“Nora…” Pyrrha says, eyes squarely on the snarling girl a few feet away.

When Nora notices the familiar face of Pyrrha, a flash of sadness washes over her face. “Ms. Pyrrha, you too…?”

The amazonian woman has a pained expression on her face. “Nora, please…”

The child looks to Ruby, looking absolutely despaired. “I trusted you…”

“You still can,” Ruby says. “We’re only trying to help you, Nora, you have to listen. We’d never do anything to hurt you. You know me, I wouldn’t do that!”

“Liar… You’re a liar…”

“She’s telling the truth, Nora,” Pyrrha interjects. “We just want to help.”

“You’re a RAT! And I should have seen this coming! I never should have trusted you! God, what was I thinking?!”

“Please don’t do this, Nora…”

“Pyrrha, I really don’t think she’s listenin’ to reason anymore,” Yang says, taking a step forward, fist balled, eyes narrowed.

“I can’t do this…” Nora mumbles, almost as if she were talking to herself, taking steps back.

“She’s about to run…”

“No more…”

“Nora, wait!” Ruby yells.

“Ruby, she’s getting ready to move!” Yang warns.

“No more… no more… no more…” Nora says over and over again.

Then, with no warning, she turns tail and sprints for the railing.

Yang turns to her sister. “RUBY!”

That was her cue. Gritting her teeth, the redhead girl teleports from sight, making a B-line for Nora. When she reappears, she wraps her arms around the orange haired girl, the two locking themselves in a struggle, tossing and turning right for the railing. Then, they end up tipping over the side, falling to the street below. Yang’s eyes widen.

“Ruby!” she yells, running for edge, looking over the side.

Pow!

“Ah!” Ruby yells upon impacting the street pavement on her back, Nora landing right next to her.

Slowly, heavily, the two stand up, recovering from their fall.

“Get… AWAY FROM ME!”

Nora screams as she turns Ruby’s way and winds a punch at her. Ruby, taking the initiative, puts her hands up in the defense, able to block most of the impact, being sent sliding back across the street a good ways away. Nora doesn't give Ruby the chance to rest, as she teleports closer and closer to the silver eyed girl.

Ruby barely had time to recover from her daze when she sees Nora appear right in front of her, revving a punch. Thinking fast, she bends backwards, narrowly dodging, going into a backflip. When she lands, Nora dashes at her with a flurry of attacks, a jump spin kick aimed at her head, which Ruby ducks under. Nora shoots out another kick and Ruby quickly moves to the side. The orange haired girl doesn’t stop, however, and kicks lower, forcing Ruby to hop over it, slighting tripping when she lands, almost getting hit by another punch.

Yang decides to take action and jumps right over the edge of building. She hits the ground hard with a loud “thud” in a crouch. The moment she touches the ground, she darts off to the fight scene.

“Leave me alone!” Nora yells.

Just as she sends out another punch, Yang darts on front of her and catches the fist in hand, taking the girl by surprise. Yang pulls Nora toward her, then sends one hell of punch into the girl’s face, sending her flying back, barely landing on all fours, skidding to a stop, still as angry as ever.

“Okay, you wanna get serious?” Yang says with a growl of her own. “Let’s get serious.”

Her hands ball into fist and punch down to her sides. The yellow bracelet on her right wrist begins to twist and turn and begin to extend out-

“Yang, wait!”

The blonde is interrupted as she turns back after her sister calls out to her.

“We don’t wanna hurt her! We just wanna calm her down and knock her back to her senses! Dial it back a notch, Junior Huntress!”

Yang flinches at Ruby’s emphasis on her title, getting full well what she was implying. Sighing, she twists her wrist, canceling the extension of her weapon.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do…” Yang says with a sigh. “Blake, keep an eye on her, would you?”

“Got it.”

Ruby quickly darts around, seeing the black haired woman standing behind her. She didn’t even notice Blake had been standing there.

As Nora reeves up to attack on her side, Yang bends her neck both ways, an audible crack being heard. “Okay, demon kid, show me what you got…”

Nora gladly obliges, teleporting from sight, effectively catching Yang off guard. The blonde keeps her guard up, keeping her surroundings in view. Nora appears from the side in a rolled up ball, uncurling to send out a kick.

“Ahhh!!” Yang screams, bring her arms up to block, Nora bouncing of the blonde’s strong defense.

She lands low, quickly darting at Yang with a strong punch, that too being blocked. She then vanished from sight and appears on the other side, sending another kick, Yang blocking that one as well, only this time countering and sending a jab, only to completely miss due to Nora spamming her teleport again. Suddenly, the child appears right above Yang, feet landing on the bigger girl’s shoulder’s. While there, she sends a punch down, impacting right into Yang’s face hard, digging in.

“Ow! Gahhh!” Yang retaliates by grabbing the girl’s wrist and sending up a punch into her jaw, Nora looking as if not even having felt it. From there, the two fighters are left pushing into one another’s jaws hard. “You know…! I gotta say, you’d think not hitting someone would be a relatively simply task, but this is actually really difficult!”

From the apartment building door, Pyrrha and Jaune burst out on to the streets, instantly taking sight of the fight at hand. Wanting to help, Pyrrha thinks fast and turns to Jaune.

“Jaune, your shield, do you have it on you?”

“Oh, uh, y-yeah!” he responds.

“May I borrow it?”

“Yeah, sure.” From the glove on his left hand, he presses a little button, making a shield form on his wrist. He detaches it and Pyrrha takes it in hand.

“Much thanks.”

She reeves it back behind her self, taking aim at her target. Once she’s sure of whether or not she’ll hit it, she throws the shield through the air right at Nora, who still stood on top of Yang. Before the young girl can turn and react in time, the shield impacts right into her, throwing her off of Yang. She flips through the air and lands, glaring right a Pyrrha.

Running forward, she teleports, appearing over Pyrrha and Jaune.

“HRAAAAHHHH!” Nora screams as she descends on the two.

“WAAAAHHHHH!” Jaune screams as he sees the wild girl coming at him and Pyrrha.

Pyrrha takes the initiative and pulls an object from the back of her belt. As she spins it, the object elongates into an orange javelin, which she brings up just in time to block Nora’s attack. The child lands on the long weapon, now face to face with Pyrrha.

“Nora, listen to me…” the woman begins. “You can’t keep doing this… All of this fighting… this anger… I cannot claim to have known your friend… but would he really approve of seeing you like this… acting like some wild animal?!”

Nora growls. “SHUT. UP!”

She pushes off of Pyrrha’s staff, causing the redheaded woman to stumble a bit. The moment Nora lands, she finds herself having large, muscular arms entangling her body tight.

“NO! NO!” she screams as she struggle against Yang’s strong grip, the blonde holding tight.

“Would you…! Cut it out already?!” Nora slams the back of her head into Yang’s nose. “Son of a BITCH! OW!”

“Let me go! Let me go! HRAH!!”

Pyrrha, seeing what was happening, begins to walk forward, a determined look in her eye. Jaune looks alarmed at what she was doing. “Pyrrha, w-wait!”

The woman slowly approaches, shrinking her javelin and it putting away.

“Hey…! Pyrrha…! You see she’s a wild one, right?! Sure you wanna get this close?!” Yang questions, still struggling to keep a grip on the thrashing, screaming child.

“I know what I am doing,” Pyrrha responds. “Just keep her close, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, easier said then done, P-Money!”

As Nora continues to thrash and fight, Pyrrha tries to talk to her. “Nora…”

“No!” she says out right! “Get out of my head! Leave me alone! You don’t know anything about me! You don’t anything about Ren!”

“…That is true Nora. I can not claim to understand you completely. Only you know that. But do you really think how you are right now is okay? Do you really believe your state of mind is the most stable?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me! Ren says there’s nothing wrong with me and he knows me better than anyone! He’s the only person in this Hell hole I trust anymore!”

“Then think about what Ren would say if he were here? Would he be okay with seeing you like this? If he truly cared about you, would he want to see you filled with so much anger? So much sadness…?”

“He is here! I know he is! Ren is still with me, I know it!”

“Nora, you know that isn’t true!”

“It is true! He would never leave me! I love him and he loves me!”

“Which is exactly why you have to stop this, Nora!”

The moment Pyrrha yells, Nora’s eyes snap open wide, her thrashing coming to a halt, shocking all the onlookers.

“This side of you… this angry, uncontrollable, blood thirsty side of you is not who you truly are! This is not the same Nora I had the pleasure of conversing with those nights ago! And I am certain this is not the same Nora your Ren would want to ever see!”

Nora continues to make not a move.

“You say Ren loved you dearly! You say he cared about you! If he truly loved you as much as you say he did, then he would never want to see you consumed by such darkness! He’d want to see you as the happy, babbling, adorable little girl that I know you are from first hand. Why would someone who loved you so much stand to witness you filled with all of this rage? Answer me that, Nora!”

She dangles limply in Yang’s grasp, her body trembling, breathing intensifying.

Pyrrha takes in a long breath, composing herself, eyes closed. “Ms. Xiao Long, please release her.”

Yang looks at Pyrrha with wide eyes. “Uh, I don’t think that’s the best idea right-“

“Please…” she insists. “Just trust me…”

She still looked hesitant, very unsure of what exactly Pyrrha was planning on doing. She looks back to her sister and Blake to see what they might think on the matter. They return equally confused, concerned looks on their faces. Blake shrugs her shoulders and Ruby nods hesitantly. Groaning, Yang slowly let’s Nora slide out of her hold, the child falling to her knees. From there Yang takes a few steps back, still looking alert and on guard.

Pyrrha takes this moment to slowly approach the little girl. When she reaches her, she gets on her two knees in front of Nora.

“…I don’t know your friend…” Pyrrha starts. “However… if I had to guess… I’d say he was… a kind person… a smart person… calm and understanding… someone who loved you so very much… someone who only wanted the best for his queen… If I were to guess any of that… would I be right in any way?”

Nora makes no move to answer, her eyes still on the ground.

“Ren would want to see you be the happiest you could be… he’d want to see you safe, and warm, and bright, and hopeful. If he were here… do you truly believe he’d approve of you… destroying yourself over his departure? I don’t think he would… What about you, Nora? Do you think he’d be okay with what you’ve been doing to yourself…?”

For a moment, the child remains silent just as before.

However, she soon, slowly, begins to shake her head. “…No… he’d… he’d get mad at me… he’d be… disappointed…”

“Why would he be disappointed, Nora…?”

“…He’d never… e-ever wanna see me so sad… he’d do anything he could… to make me laugh… he’d try to tell me jokes… even though they always stunk… he’d h-hug me real tight and… and tell me…” A hiccup escapes her throat. “‘Things can only get b-better… The sun… always shines after a storm… p… put that sadness behind you and… a-and…’” A drop of moisture hits the ground.

“What would he say, Nora? What would he tell you…?”

More tears hit the pavement, increasing by the second. She hiccuped uncontrollably, hands coming up to cover her mouth. Her body shakes more and more, head dipping lower. As the young girl poured her heart out, visions play though her mind; visions of happier times, ones where she wasn’t alone. Ones… with him still in the picture.

She saw his back at first. The long black pony tail hung down over his dull green top. She wanted to call his name, but found she couldn’t. She could only look on, hoping he’d turn to her one last time. One last time so she could see that beautiful face…

And he did… he slowly turned her direction, the familiar, small, yet warm smile she couldn’t bare to see go still on his face. His hand raises… and he waves at her. Not in his normal “welcome back” way. But… rather… in a way someone would wave… when they were saying goodbye…

image [https://i.imgur.com/nGqptXI.png]

His lips moved ever so slightly, silent words leaving them, words she couldn’t hear. And then he turns away from her. And walked. And walked. And walked… Until she couldn’t see him… Until he was engulfed by the light…

Crying without a care in the world now, she pushes to finish. “…And… ‘Keep… moving… forward… Never stop moving… A-Always… look ahead… A… A… And keep pushing…’”

And she cries. She lets the tears flow. Nothing was holding them back. She had no reason to hide them.

Everyone looked on sadly. Ruby looked just about on the brink of tears herself, trembling as Yang and Blake wrapped the girl in their arms. The two older woman exchange melancholic gazes, then look back to the scene. Jaune, behind Pyrrha, had both his hands atop his head, breathing deep as if trying to keep up a controlled front, but still looking like he just wanted to hug the poor kid.

Pyrrha looks down at the sobbing Nora sadly. But then… she begins to smile. It was a small, sad one, but a smile never the less. Her hand slowly raises and gently lands on Nora’s tear streaked cheek.

“Nora…” she calls her name, lifting her face up to look at hers.

image [https://i.imgur.com/3xINgc3.png]

"'Things can only get better… The sun always shines after a storm…’ Keep those words close to your heart… He may be gone… but he shall never be forgotten… I know it hurts now… And I know you don’t want to hear this right now…” Her hand runs through Nora’s hair. “But you will make it though this… You are a strong, smart, kind young girl… and I know Ren believes in you…”

She smiles brighter. “Keep moving forward, Nora… Everything’s going to be just fine…”

For a moment, Nora can only stare into Pyrrha’s green eyes with her big, teal ones. Those same eyes tear up even more. Her face contorts into a broken, vulnerable one. She lunges forward and wraps her arms around Pyrrha, her chest buried in her chest… and she cries. Like a child who has been denied this chance… she cries her little heart out.

“I’m sorry…” she says through tears. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, Ms. Pyrrha… I’m so sorry…”

The red haired woman doesn't even hesitate to return the embrace, bringing Nora in tight, resting her head atop of Nora’s. “There’s nothing to apologize for… I’m just happy you’re okay…”

Arms entangled around one another, the two girls sit in the silent night. Nora continues to sob in Pyrrha’s embrace, the woman holding her for as long as she needed to…

----------------------------------------

Police sirens whined around the nearby area. Authorities and medical experts roamed the area, going about their given duties. Police checked around the place to make sure no bystanders had been injured during the the short lived battled that took place only an hour before.

Handcuffs are strapped around her small wrists. She makes no move to resist, accepting her punishment. Once he’s finished, the police officer moves aside, standing at attention beside Nora. His superior walks up, hands behind back.

“Ms. Nora,” the higher up begins. “You are being charged with the crimes of severe acts of vandalism, disturbance of the peace, and attempted harm to citizens of Vale City. You will now be escorted by the Vale City Police Department to a temporary holding facility, and then properly tried for the crimes you have committed. Do you understand all of that, young lady?”

She nods slowly, her teal eyes on the pavement. “Yes…”

A few feet away, the five others involved with the rather loud incident of the night stand and watch as Nora prepares to be taken away. Ruby shakes her head. “This isn’t right… I don’t think Nora deserves this.”

“I actually agree with you, Ruby,” Blake says. “For all the trouble she’s caused, no one was actually hurt besides those criminals who need to be behind bars anyhow. As far as I’m concerned, she was doing the city a favor.”

“Maybe true, but that wasn’t something for Nora to be doing in the first place,” Yang throws in her two cents, arms crossed.

Ruby turns to her sister. “It shouldn’t matter who does it. Nora was doing a heck of a lot more about those guys than the police have been so far. They should be giving her a medal, not hauling her off to jail.”

“Baby girl, I never said I didn’t agree with you. But this isn’t just a matter of her doing the right thing. At the end of the day, she still wrecked a lot of property, could have put other citizens in dangers, and may have made the situation worse by taking those guys out.”

Ruby is taken aback by the last statement from Yang. Blake gives her a confused look and Jaune turns to her.

“Wait, what?” the boy asks. “Isn’t putting a stop to that whole gang operation a good thing? How does Nora making it easier for the police to capture them complicate things?”

“See, this is why people like us don’t get involved in this kind of stuff. Yes, Nora caught a lot of the baddies. That’s great and all, but what does that really accomplish at the end of the day? The fact is, these people are still just as unknown as they were before. We have no idea what they’re really up to, no idea how big their organization is, why their kidnapping people and Fauna; we know nothing still.”

Yang rubs her blonde head of hair. “Nora and Ruby taking those guys out might make them a bit antsy and they could do one of two things. 1: they may find that staying in the city is only doing more harm than good and they could escape without us even knowing. Or 2: they could start getting more aggressive and people could be put in much more danger than before when they were trying to be more under wraps about their business. We don’t know what kind of arsenal they have, or how many guys they’ve got under their belt. We can’t just go into the situation with so little knowledge. There’s too many risks to doing that right now.”

Jaune blinks as he takes in all the information Yang let out. “Oh wow… never really thought about all that…”

“Yeah, neither did Nora. For her, she could care less about helping the police with their problems. Her only prerogative was to make the sons of bitches pay for taking away her best friend. And she was gonna make that happen one way or another.”

Ruby opens her mouth to rebuttal, but finds she has nothing to say that could counter-argue Yang’s points effectively. She solemnly turns back to the situation the orange haired girl in question found herself in. Right now, she was being lowered into one of the police cars. Once she’s properly seated in it, the door slams shut.

Through the window, Ruby can see the young girl’s face. It looked substantially less bright than Ruby had ever seen before in her short time knowing the hyperactive child. Her head leaned on the window as her eyes stared into nothingness, her mind most likely not even focusing on what was happening, most likely still on the reality she was made to finally accept.

The thought of how broken the poor girl must have felt made Ruby’s eyes narrow and her teeth grit slightly, frustrated by her inability to do anything for Nora.

“It doesn’t matter…”

Ruby looks to her right, the sound of Pyrrha’s low voice reminding the redheaded little girl that the taller redhead had been standing next to her the entire time. Pyrrha’s eyes were just as narrow as her own. Ruby looks lower to see that Pyrrha’s hand was balled into a tight, trembling fist.

“None of that matters…” Pyrrha whispers. “She doesn’t deserve this…”

At that moment, Pyrrha takes on a look of someone with a mission. She looks over to the scene near the police car. Ruby follows the older girls sight, her eyes landing on the police car Nora had been placed in. Next to that, she spots the police chief who apprehended Nora. Next to him, a familiar looking gray haired man converses with the chief, a cane in hand, but, noticeably, not his coffee mug.

“Mr. Ozpin?” Ruby questions.

That’s when Pyrrha beings to swiftly walk away from the group and make a B-Line for Ozpin. Ruby watches in mild panic.

“H-Hey! Pyrrha!” Jaune yells out, quickly following behind Pyrrha. “Wait up!”

Ruby expectedly turns to her older sister, seeing the blonde roll her eyes. “Here we go…” Yang says exasperated before she too follows after the Huntress in training.

Blake and Ruby, after giving each other quick glances, decide it best that they follow as well.

It was soon after Pyrrha began to approach him that Ozpin quickly took notice and paused the conversation he’d been having with the police officer. Before she’d fully approached, he turned to completely face the oncoming woman, a calm, relaxed demeanor to his stance.

“Hello, Ms. Pyrrha,” he greets like he would to anyone else on any other day. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She stops her stride directly in front of the headmaster, her pose erect, feet together, hands by her side respectfully. “Forgive my intrusion, professor. I mean no disrespect with my interruption.”

“It is quite alright, Ms. Pyrrha. No harm done. Now, judging by the way you strutted over her with such clear purpose, I’m assuming there is something you’d like to get off of your chest?”

She nods. “Professor, with all due respect, I cannot stand by and watch Nora be handled like she were on the same level as the thugs she did battle with.”

The gray haired man raises a brow. “Oh?”

“I strongly request that you say something to get her fate reconsidered. I believe Nora doesn’t deserve any of what is to happen to her. Despite the damages she caused, she did not get any of the civilians in the city hurt and she helped to battle a dangerous group of people who the police should be putting more of their time and effort into bringing in.”

“That doesn’t matter one bit.” Pyrrha turns to the chief as he barges into the conversation. “That little troublemaker in there caused a lot of damage to city property. And we don’t need some little kid going around acting like Spiderman, or something. We got enough problems to deal with without her going around blowing up buildings.”

“Chief, please,” Ozpin cuts in. “Tone it down if you don’t mind. No need to get so worked up.”

Reluctantly, the man closes his mouth and takes a small step back.

“That being said, the chief here does raise a good point, Pyrrha. Despite Nora’s contributions to taking down a few very dangerous men, she still must account for her wrong doings. Her heart may have been in the right place, but that doesn’t change the fact that she still needs to face the consequences for her actions.”

“Headmaster, I understand that, I completely do. But arresting her like this? Does her punishment have to be so harsh? She’s isn’t a bad person, she’s just… misguided. That little girl is no criminal and she doesn’t deserve to be treated as such. She’s made mistakes, but none that got anybody hurt. Honestly sir, all things considered, I’d say Nora is more of the victim here.”

The man rubs his chin, listening to Pyrrha speak.

“Nora is not well, sir. That child has been forced to face too many atrocities alone. She was scared, confused, and alone. She was angry and she felt helpless. Worst of all, she had to deal with all of these problems without the guidance of anyone. She was forced to simply “deal with it” and take matters into her own hands. She has nowhere to go, no one to call on. She has nothing left, sir…”

“…And I assume you want to help her.”

Her head lowers. “…I need to… I know I can, somehow. But it isn’t just me. Nora needs real psychiatric help, she needs treatment. She is a mental time bomb, ticking down, waiting to explode at any given moment.”

“Amen to that,” Yang speaks up.

“Shut up, Yang,” Blake can be heard saying.

“My bad. Carry on.”

“Putting her in the back of a police car like this, isolating her even more than she already was originally?” Pyrrha continues “This will only hurt her, sir, and I don’t feel Nora deserves this. I ask you to please reconsider this decision.”

Ozpin’s eyes shut for a moment as he ponders over the talk he and Pyrrha just had. His hand slowly strokes his chin. “Let me ask you something, Ms. Pyrrha,” he says. She stands attentive, preparing for Ozpin’s question. “…Say I was to reconsider, maybe let Nora go. How could I be sure she won’t cause anymore trouble? How can I trust she won’t just go back to performing criminal activity?”

Pyrrha seemed fazed by Ozpin’s question, unable to properly respond. “Um… well…”

“And, truthfully, she still must be held accountable for her actions. It’s only right. So, if I were to consider keeping her out of jail, what do you think would be a suitable punishment for Nora? What do you think would be a fair trade off for her freedom?”

Her gaze ponders anywhere besides into Ozpin’s own. Her hands moved uncomfortably, she fidgeted as she attempted to respond. Her mouth opened to answer, but no words came out. Behind her, Jaune stood watching, looking back and forward between Ozpin and Pyrrha. As time went by and Pyrrha could not come up with an answer, the boy looks up to the dark sky.

Closing his eyes for moment, he sighs softly. “Alright, screw it,” he says to himself.

Opening his eyes, he looks back to the scene, a determined look in his eye. He walks forward and places a hand on Pyrrha’s shoulder, causing her to look back at him in surprise. Jaune gives her a quick smile and winks, taking her completely off guard as she looks at him bewildered. He gently moves her aside and walks up to Ozpin. The older man looks down with a curious gaze.

Jaune raises a hand to be called on. “Mr. Ozpin,” he begins. “If you would hear me out for one second, I’d like to, uh, maybe make a deal with you. Is that okay?”

Ozpin shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t see why not. What sort of deal do you have in mind, Mr. Arc?

He looks down at the ground, then turns and gives the rest of the group a quick glance, they all unsure of what exactly he was planning. He gives them a little shrug and a corny little grin. Sighing, he looks back up at Mr. Ozpin, dropping his hand down to his side, his face turning serious, eyes hardening. He takes in a breath, poking his chest out. His hand balls into a fist.

“If you let her go… I’ll take full responsibility for Nora’s actions. You free Nora… and I’ll gladly leave your academy, sir.”

From behind, the group’s eyes widen. Yang, who had her hands behind her head, lowers them, slightly slipping over herself.

“J-Jaune!” Pyrrha says, not believing what she was hearing.

Even Ozpin can be seen taking on a slight look of shock at Jaune’s terms. “Mr. Arc… Are you honestly telling me that you’d take expulsion from Beacon Academy for the sake of that little girl you barely even know?”

“Well, I mean, when you put it like that, it does sounds pretty stupid, but…” he sighs. “Yes, sir, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

“Mr. Arc, why on Remnant would you do something so drastic? Is Nora really that important to you that you’d throw away your future like this for her sake.”

He chuckles a little. “Honestly, sir… You are absolutely right. I literally just met that kid for the first time in my life tonight. And during that one time, she tried to smash my face in. I know this may all sound strange… And it is, believe me, I realize that. But… I mean, I gotta be honest, she’s worth it, man- I mean, sir.”

Ozpin places both hands on his cane. “Is she now?”

“Yeah, she really is. And not just her. I think anyone is, honestly.” He puts his hands on his hips, looking down. “I enrolled in your school, Mr. Ozpin, so I could help people. I honestly just wanna make the world a better place for everyone. I’ve always believed that the Hunters were some of the bravest, most selfless people to ever grace the face of Remnant. I looked up to each and every one of them. They were my idols: people I wanted to be like when I grew up. My ancestors were great Hunters when they were alive. I used to hear stories about how powerful and great they were in battle, how many people they fought to protect.”

He smiles. “I guess I always wanted to help people just like they did. I think the Hunters truly fight for a world where things like what happened to Nora’s friend, or even what happened to Nora herself could never happen. A world where everyone can have a chance to be happy, y’know? I just wanna make people happy.”

He turns to the car Nora was in. “I only got a glimpse at her… but that was all I needed. That kid doesn’t deserve any of this. She was dealt some bad cards and I know she isn’t the only one in the world who got the short end of the stick in their life. But I can’t help everyone at the same time. That just isn’t gonna happen. But right here, right now, I know I can do something for that little girl and I’m gonna make sure to help her. I mean, that’s what a Hunter does, right? We help people, it’s in the job description.”

Ozpin, who’d given his full attention to the blonde boy, adjusts his glasses. “And you’d really be willing to take the fall for what Nora did? Are you really okay with being expelled from Beacon?”

Jaune laughs a little. “Well… let’s be honest, Mr Ozpin; for all that big talk I was just spitting, there are a whole lot of people way more qualified to be at Beacon other than me. I’m at the bottom of the school tier, the weakest link. I’m surprised I was even accepted into the school in the first place.” His eyes dampen, but he continues to smile softly. “I don’t really belong here. Back in the forest, when I went charging in like an idiot to help Weiss, I would have died if Ruby hadn’t save my butt. I wouldn’t last a second out in the real world, outside the barriers. I’d be as good as dead the minute I tried fighting back. So, if I were expelled, nothing would really be lost. There’d just be another spot open for someone more suitable to the task.”

Pyrrha watches the boy speak with sad eyes. “Oh, Jaune…”

The boy looks in Ozpin’s eye. “But if I’m gonna do this, I wanna at least give Nora a second chance at life. She deserves at least that much. And if this is what it takes, then so be it.”

The older man takes a look at the orange haired girl in the police car. Her head still leaning on the window, empty eyes staring into nothing. After that quick moment, he looks back at Jaune. “In that instance, Mr. Arc, when you met her, what did you see? What did you see in Nora that convinced you of wanting to help her?”

Jaune crosses his arms. “…A kid who just needs a hug, or something… That’s what I saw…”

“And this child is so important that you’d be willing to throw away your future for her?”

“…Headmaster… to be perfectly honest… throwing away my life… my future… for someone who might be killed by this world we live in… is the exact same as throwing away my life… my future… for someone who never got a chance to have one. You once told us at the start of the year that every life and soul we Huntsman protect are equal in every way… that no life is more valuable than another’s. Well, that applies to Nora’s, too…”

The headmaster’s eyes close. As a small smile stretches across his lips, a soft sigh also escapes them. “Chief… let the child out of the car, if you will?”

At Ozpin’s command, the police officer takes on a look of shock. “W-What?! Mr. Ozpin, you can’t be-“

Before he can even finish what he was saying, the chief finds himself losing a grasp on his words. Ozpin looks back at him, a serious, harsher than usual glare in his eye. “Did I stutter, chief…?

The man gulps. “S…Sir…?”

“I asked you a question, officer… Did I, perchance, stutter…?”

He clears his throat. “N-No, Mr. Ozpin, you did not stutter…”

“Were we having a discussion about following my orders?”

“We… We were not, sir…”

“Then why are we having it right now and why isn’t the child out of that car yet?”

The chief looks a lot more humbled now as a drop of sweat rolls down the side of his face. It looked as if he had an extremely difficult time keeping eye contact with Ozpin, his hands balling tightly. However, despite his hesitation, the man eventually sighs in defeat and removes the keys off his hip, then walks over to the police car Nora was being held in. He opens the door, causing the orange haired young girl to look up curiously.

“Come on, kid,” the police man says, inserting a key into Nora’s shackles, freeing her. She rubs her wrists, still looking to the man silently. “Today’s yer’ lucky day.”

The man moves out of the way, giving Nora the chance to look out of the car and see the group of teens and Ozpin looking back at her expectedly. She had a slight look of nervousness about her features as she slowly stepped out of the vehicle, the door being closed behind her by the officer. After that, she makes no other move.

“Come here, child,” Ozpin says.

“It’s okay, Nora. You don’t have to worry,” Pyrrha says kindly with a smile.

Still a bit hesitant, Nora strides over to the group. When she reaches the side of Ozpin, he fully faces her, towering over her much smaller body, looking directly into her big teal eyes. Despite her best efforts to look back into his, Nora can’t help but to avert her own gaze.

“Nora, these nice kids here have pleaded with me for your freedom,” Ozpin says outright. She looks a bit shocked. “They have convinced me to, perhaps, give you a second chance and not haul you off to be dealt with by separate authorities. They somehow succeeded in looking past your recent actions and give you a chance to prove yourself as someone I don’t have to shackle up. Mr. Arc and Ms. Pyrrha believe you can reform from your… ‘destructive tendencies’ and turn over a new leaf.”

The silver haired man moves over to the side a little, allowing Nora to see both Jaune and Pyrrha, who stood side by side, looking back at her. A small smile graced Pyrrha’s lips. Jaune had a dorky looking grin plastered on his.

“These two trust that you deserve more than what I was prepared to give. They’ve even offered to help you start a new life… with them.” The last statement catches Nora’s attention and she turns to Ozpin. “They’ve offered to watch over you, give you a home; a new life. And I’m willing to agree to them letting this happen. However, I have a few conditions that must be met in order for this all to work.”

Nora can be seen visibly swallowing saliva.

Ozpin lifts a finger. “Condition 1: You will tell the authorities everything you know about this so called ‘slavery business’ being run behind our backs. And I do mean everything.” He raises a second finger. “Condition 2: I am requiring that you attend a regular psychiatric checkup without fail. I will not tolerate skipping out on sessions. No excuses.” He raises a third finger. “Condition 3: You will not partake in any of your past activities. No destruction of city property, no vandalism, no vigilanteism, no… sandwich stealing- good lord, you are an odd child…” He clears his throat. “You get the idea. None of… that.”

This time he turns to Jaune and Pyrrha, raising a forth finger. “This last condition goes for you two. You will make sure Nora doesn’t cause us any more trouble in the future. From this point on, she is your responsibility and I expect for you to keep her in check. If I have to explain to Ms. Goodwitch why I let a criminal on the loose, I’m coming for you two first. And then I’m sending Glynda your way.”

“Dude, that is just evil…” Yang can be heard saying.

Jaune and Pyrrha give each other a nervous look and swallow loudly. They turn to Ozpin and nod hesitantly.

Ozpin turns back to Nora. “Now… although I’ve told you all of this… the fact of the matter is: the final choice is yours, Nora. The way I see it, you have three options. You run away right now using the interesting ability you and Ruby possess. But worry not. I will not chase after you, unless you cause the city anymore problems, that is. But the fine print of the choice is, however, you will prove unworthy of the kindness Jaune and Pyrrha have shown you. You will be alone, I can promise you that. And I know you don’t want that.”

Nora looks to the ground.

“Your second choice: you can put the cuffs back on and leave in that police car there. From there, the authorities will handle your fate. And your third option…” He points his cane to the group of teens. “You can start again… Nora, I promise you, if you were to come with us, you will have a second life. I assure you that these people will take care of you. They truly believe there is something greater in you. They believe you are someone worth risking everything for. And if you were to give them a chance… I’m sure you will come to believe it as well.”

The young girl looks to the group unmoving. They all look back, waiting for her to make her choice.

“So… what will you do, child?”

Her foot moves forward, a hesitant step being taken as if she were still thinking about the option for a moment. Then, she slowly starts to walk forward, approaching Jaune and Pyrrha. Pyrrha moves to takes a step forward. Finally, the young girl is now in front of the taller redhead, the two girls looking into each other’s eyes.

“…Would you really… stay with me…?” Nora asks.

Pyrrha brings out the most sincere of smiles she possible can. Her hand raises to Nora’s cheek, the other landing on top of her head softly. “If you would give me that chance… I swear… you’ll never have to be alone…”

A tear falls out of Nora’s eye. “…Never again…?”

Pyrrha nods. “Never ever…”

In that moment, Nora lunges at Pyrrha and wraps her arms around the taller girl, burying her face in her chest. Pyrrha is quick to return the tight embrace, burying her face in the younger girl’s hair. Behind the two, Jaune has a small grin on his face.

Ozpin, watching the scene before him, can’t help but to smile himself. “I suppose she’s made her choice…” With that, the man turns and walks away, leaving the children to their own devices. Before he makes his full departure, he walks over to Yang, Ruby, and Blake, who all stood behind, watching the scene with smiles of their own.

Once Ruby and Yang see Ozpin approach, however, their smiles quickly drop.

“I see it’s been quite the eventful few nights for you two as well,” he says to the two sisters. They take on nervous looks. “I expect to hear all about it in the morning. And then we can discuss the matter of you using your sister to take on this case. As well as involving an outside citizen in these affairs.” He smiles. “Sound good to you, Yang?”

Yang opens her mouth, but just ends up sighing, hanging her head. Ozpin then turns to Ruby.

“And Ruby… we most certainly need to have a serious talk about you getting into trouble as of recent.”

Ruby also bows her head. “Y…Yes, sir…”

That’s when his own smile drops and he too groans, shaking his head. “That being said… we never speak of this to Glynda. Deal?”

The two sisters nod. “Deal.”

With that, he turns and begins to walk away. “Good lord, she would have a field day if she ever found out about this…”

The much older man makes his exit, leaving to deal with the matter of keeping Glynda from discovering the night’s events. With him out the picture, the three girls redirect their attention to the heartwarming scene before them.

“Well ain’t that just the sweetest thing,” Yang says, a smile on her face and a hand on her hip. Curious to how her sister was taking it all, she peaks a glance over at Ruby… and smiles even more at seeing the rare, bright, sincere smile on her sister’s face. She looks up to see Blake looking back at her with a grin. Yang just shrugs.

After a moment, Pyrrha softly pushes Nora back, the kid unwrapping her arms from around Pyrrha, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Uhh… Nora?” At the sound of Jaune’s voice, Pyrrha moves to the side so Nora and Jaune can look at each other, the boy rubbing a hand on his head awkwardly. “Um… yeah, so… you may not really know me, but… I’m, uh… one of the guys that you, uh, tried to smash to pieces. I sorta… convinced Ozpin to let you go, heh…”

Unbeknownst to Jaune, Nora’s eyes began to sparkle at the sight of him. As he rambles on, she begins to approach him.

“I know you’re… probably wondering why some random dude just fought for your freedom, but, if you would just give me a sec to explain, I promise you there’s a good reason I did what I did. It may sound a bit weird, b-but it’s a good reason none the less!”

By now, Nora had fully reached Jaune and was now staring up at him as he yammered on.

“Thing is… I know what you’ve been through and… and what happened to your friend a-a-and I just thought… y’know, no kid should have to go through something like that. I mean, come on, how sick is the world when a little girl… like, really?! Come on, I couldn’t just let you deal with all that your… You’re just a kid- I mean, I’m technically just a kid myself even though I’m, like, 17, but I see you and I… Augh! I just wanna protect ya’! I used to have a few sisters myself and, even though I had a hard time with them, I still just wanted them to be… Like… Is any of this making sense to you?”

“You’re the boy who saved her…”

This catches Jaune completely off guard as Nora spoke. His hands drop to his side and dangle there. “…Huh?”

“The snow cone head… you… went into that forest and fought that monster… to save the snow cone head… You didn’t stand a chance… and you went anyway.”

He scratches his face, chuckling nervously. “Eheheh… Yeah, I… really don’t know what I was thinking…”

“It was completely stupid.”

His head drops at that. “Yes… Yes it was…”

“That was… the coolest thing I’ve ever seen…”

It takes him a second to process what he had just heard, but, when he does, he slowly look up at Nora, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Nora looked over to the side, a light blush on her cheeks.

“I…remember watching you run in after the mean girl… your sword was out… and… and you had this really cool look on your face… You looked so much bigger than ever before… standing there like that… And then, knowing full well you’d probably die… you still tried to save the snow cone head anyway… I’ve never seen something so awesome before… That’s something Ren would do…”

By now, Jaune had fully stood up, towering over Nora, a look of pure astonishment on his face. He’d lost track of the entire conversation, still not quite processing Nora’s words…

“I’m really glad I got to meet you, Jaune…”

But despite that, her last words made him smile the brightest, unable to hold it back.

Pyrrha walks up next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I told you you’re better than you think you are.”

The boy scratches the back of his. “Well… Nora, I… I don’t know what to-“

image [https://i.imgur.com/riqYXDd.png]image [https://i.imgur.com/STjqCAO.png]

Anything he had to stutter out before that had been completely forgotten. Now, his only instinct was to wrap his arms around Nora’s body and return the tight hug, closing his eyes, smiling at the warmth.

From the background, still smiling her pretty little head off, Ruby says, quietly, “Making progress…”

And from here, we fade to black...

To Be Continued...