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Disclaimer: I do not own Rwby or any of it's characters, songs, features, etc. I am only a fan. RWBY belongs to Roosterteeth and was created by Monty Oum. Songs were written by Jeff Williams.

Roses and Thorns

    Chapter 7: A New Coincidence

            Ruby sat awkwardly in her seat. ‘This class is huge.’

“How many people are in here again?” She asked Yang.

“About fifty,” she answered, “though a good portion of them are in stage tech.”

Ruby swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘And I thought first period was a big class…’

“Are you alright? You look stiff.” Blake asked while taking a seat next to Yang.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed is all. But I’ll be fine.” Ruby said while trying to relax.

“Yeah, I remember the first day we had this class.” Jaune said while shuddering at the memory. “That was not fun.”

“I remember that!” Nora laughed. “You tripped on your way up the stage and caused a few microphones to fall over, causing one of them to shorten out and blow a fuse! The power in that entire hallway was out for a whole day!”

“Please don’t remind me…” Jaune pulled his hood up over his face and shrunk in his seat.

“Why? It was hilarious.”

The five looked up to see a tall young man with orange hair and a black bowler hat standing in front of them. He was leaning on a hooked cane and had a tooth pick hanging out of his mouth.

“Though my favorite part was the priceless little look you had on your face.” He laughed. “Your eyes where the size of dinner plates!”

Jaune blushed deeply and shrunk even more. He mumbled out a small “It wasn’t that funny.”

“I’m just messin’ with ya’ kiddo.” The man smiled and turned to Ruby. “I actually came over here to meet you.” He said while pointing at her.

Ruby stood up and extended her hand. “Oh, uh, I’m Ruby Rose.”

Instead of shaking her hand, the man lightly slapped it, giving her a high five. “Nice to meet ya’ Red. Can I call you Red?”

“Uh-”

“I’m gonna’ call you Red.” His smile grew and he pointed to himself. “The name’s Torchwick; though I prefer to have my students call me Roman.”

“You’re a teacher?” Ruby asked absentmindedly and slapped her hand on her mouth as soon as she realized she said it.

Roman tilted his head back and huffed out a laugh. “Don’t look so guilty kid!” He said. “It isn’t the first time that’s happened… I actually find it quite amusing when someone mistakes me for a student.”

“I’ve done it to.” Yang said while smiling slightly. “But I still sometimes mistake the other one for a middle schooler.”

“Other one?” Ruby asked.

Roman chuckled and pointed up at the sound booth behind them. “You see that girl up there?”

Ruby turned around and looked up into the sound booth. She saw a young girl with pink and brown hair working with the sound board. She was wearing a black shirt that said ‘Tech Team’, and also had a headset resting around her neck.

“Her name’s Neapolitan, but she goes by Neo.” Roman explained. “She’s my assistant teacher; while I teach the theatrical part of class, she teaches and helps the kids in stage tech.”

“How…old is she?” Ruby asked. She could see why people mistook her for a middle schooler.

“She’s three months shy of being twenty.”

Yang laughed. “She looks twelve!”

“So… did she recently graduate?” Ruby asked.

Roman shook his head. “She graduated early and is taking college online. She works as my assistant as a part time job, which is why this class is so big; fourth period is the only class that teaches stage tech.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” Ruby smiled. She felt a slight connection with the girl, considering how Ruby ‘graduated’ from middle school two years early. Also because she finally knew someone who was actually shorter than her.

“It’s too bad she only gets one class to teach.” Roman said. “She’s pretty darn good at it for her condition.”

Ruby was about to ask him what he meant by ‘condition’ but he had already begun to walk away.

“Would ya’ look at the time!” He said while looking up at a clock on the wall. “I gotta’ get class started.” He hopped up on the stage and Ruby took her seat. Roman clapped his hands a few times to get everyone’s attention. When he had it, he cleared his throat and began.

“Alright class, as you know, we will be putting on a play here in a few months.”

When he said it, a large portion of the class began hooting and cheering slightly, while a few others groaned. ‘Whelp, that tells me who didn’t want this class but still got it.’ Ruby thought.

“Alright, alright, calm down everyone.” Roman said with a smile. “Now, seeing how we have a new student with us, and also the fact that some of you don’t like to listen, I will explain the play once again.” He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “This play will be graded on how well you can improvise, as well as memorize.” He said. “Large portions of the play are already scripted for you, and the rest -is not. The reason for this is because the characters do not exist yet… so there is only key dialogue and movements you have to memorize. With the rest, you have to improvise based on the character you have chosen to act out, of course, I have to give you permission to use that character first.” Roman twirled his cane in his hand and paced back and forth on the stage, making Ruby realize he didn’t actually need it. “You will have minimal props, and the rest you have to mime; though you will have costumes,” Roman smiled at some of the students’ reactions, “but you have to make whatever props and costumes you need yourself.” He laughed when their reactions changed. “Now, this will be a mixture of comedy, tragedy, adventure, and whatever you choose to make it.”

Yang leaned towered Ruby and whispered to her. “Fantasy violence.”

Ruby chuckled silently and shook her head. Fantasy violence was her and Yang’s favorite genre.

“Fantasy violence for example!” Roman announced and pointed the end of his cane at Yang.

“I didn’t think you heard that.” She said with a blank expression.

“I didn’t. I just know you that well.” Roman smiled and winked at her playfully.

Yang winked back and shot hand guns at him, and he returned the gesture, causing the class to laugh slightly.

“As I said before, the play will be in a few months, so you have plenty of time to choose your characters, make your props and costumes, and practice.” He smiled. “So you should ace this easy, I mean, unless you choose to not work and end up procrastinating until the last second.” He smiled.

Some of the students shuffled awkwardly in their seats. Ruby almost laughed when Yang blew out a soft whistle and shifted awkwardly as well.

“Now, my part of the class, I would like to all to choose a partner to practice your scripts with. Whoever you choose will be your partner up until the play, so choose wisely; though you have my permission to work with other pairs.” The class mumbled amongst themselves; friend groups already pairing up just by giving each other the ‘yo bud, how you doin’ ’ look.

“Tech team, I want you to get instructions from Neo on what to do for the play.” Roman said. As if on que, Neo appeared on the stage. Ruby nearly choked on her own breath when seeing Neo at a closer perspective. ‘She really does look twelve!’ Neo made a motion with her hand, and the tech students stood up and went with her into the sound booth.

“I’ll go get your scripts from my office, so in the meantime partner up.” At that, he walked off the stage and went to go get the scripts.

The students immediately started getting in pairs. Ruby had no idea who team up with, so she just sat there, thinking about her options.

‘Let’s see… there’s Yang and Blake, though they might want to pair up… there’s also Nora and Ren…’ Ruby looked up to see Nora hug attack the poor boy, but he only smiled and awkwardly hugged her back. ‘Okay, never mind… there is also Su- he paired up with the blue haired guy… hmm… oh! Jaune!’ Ruby looked up again and saw him talking to a tall red haired girl. They seemed like they had already paired up so Ruby went back to choosing her options. ‘Okay… oh! Velvet and Yatsu-what’s his name are also here!... but they have partners too…hmmm.’

“I hate to break you from whatever you’re thinking about, but it seems you don’t have a partner.”

Ruby looked up and saw Weiss standing in front of her.

“And quite frankly, neither do I.”

Ruby looked around the room, then back up at Weiss. She slowly pointed to herself.

Weiss rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Yes, I’m talking to you, ya’ dolt.”

Ruby stood up and awkwardly put her hands in her hoody pocket. She shyly shrugged her shoulders and looked Weiss in the eyes. “…Would you… like to be partners?”

“That’s what I was hinting at, yes.”

Ruby blushed slightly and shuffled on her feet. “Soooo… what would you like to practice? The improv. or the memorization?”

“I think we should look over our scripts fist.” Weiss said. “That way we have a better idea on how to approach this.”

Ruby nodded her head. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Hopefully it won’t get screwed up this time.” Weiss said.

Ruby felt her heart sink a little, but then she saw Weiss’ smile.

“I’m just messing with you Ruby.” She said.

Ruby smiled back. “Oh, heheh…”

An awkward silence fell on the two.

“Alright, I have your scripts!” Roman announced when he was back on the stage. “Pick as randomly as you like. It doesn’t matter which one you get.” He plopped the large pile of packets down onto the stage, and the students went up and grabbed them.

Ruby and Weiss both grabbed a random packet and sat down by the wall. Everyone was scattered around the theatre, so they went somewhere where there was a little more space.

“Who’d you get?” Ruby asked. She saw that at the top of her packet, a set of bold letters read ‘Person B’, and all of person B’s lines were highlighted.

“I have Person I.” Weiss said. “What about you?”

“I got Person B.” She said.

Weiss skimmed through the packet, trying to figure out how to read it.

“It looks like most of the lines are written for us.” She said. “And the blank underlined spaces are where we are supposed to improvise.”

Ruby looked through her packet as well and nodded in agreement. “Looks like I have a ton to improvise…” Ruby said somewhat defeatedly.

“Mine says I have to come up with a small catchphrase for my character.” Weiss said, while holding her chin in thought.

Ruby giggled and whispered, “You could use your whole ‘dunce/dolt’ thing you got goin’.”

“That could actually work.” Weiss said while raising her eyebrows.

“Whoa, wait I was just kiddi-”

“No, that’s actually something I could use.” Weiss interrupted. “From the looks of the rest of my script, it fits my character’s personality perfectly.”

“O-oh… well, alright then. I was also gonna’ say ‘bazainga!’ but the other one’s better.” Ruby smiled.

“… Bazainga?” Weiss repeated flatly.

Ruby looked at her for a few seconds then coughed once. “Never mind that…”

Weiss rolled her eyes with a smirk and went back to reading through her script.

“Do you know who you want your character to be yet?” Ruby asked after a while.

“I have one in mind, but I’m not certain if they need to match the personalities of our characters.” Weiss answered.

Ruby shrugged her shoulders. “Wanna’ go ask?”

“Sure.” Weiss said while standing up.

Ruby stood up as well and they went to go ask Roman. There were a few students already talking to him, so they had to wait a few minutes.

“What about you,” Weiss asked, “have you decided yet?”

“I’m hoping to be Red Riding Hood.” Ruby said.

“Why am I not surprised?” Weiss smiled.

Ruby looked at her for a few seconds. “…Weiss sure has been smiling a lot recently… it’s a really pretty smile.” She said softly.

“Wh-what?” Weiss’ brows furrowed and she blushed slightly.

“What?! Wait- I didn’t mean to- ah- um… never mind!” Ruby looked away from Weiss and mentally kicked herself for accidentally saying it out loud.

They both stood there awkwardly until Roman walked up to them. “May I help you ladies with anything?” He asked.

“Yes please.” Weiss said while trying to get rid of her blush. “We were wondering if the characters we choose have to match the personalities of the lines in the script?”

“Nope.” Roman smiled while popping the ‘p’. “Who would you like to be?”

“I’d like to be Red Riding Hood.” Ruby said, causing Roman to laugh.

“I figured as much. Your red hoodie pretty much shouts ‘Red Riding Hood’.”

“Heheh, yeah…” Ruby tried her best to push away any sad thought that crossed her mind; her mother made her that hoodie after all.

“What about you?” Roman asked, turning to Weiss.

“I’d like to be Snow White.” She said. She flinched when Roman barked out laughing, gaining some of the students’ attention.

“That’s amazing!” He laughed. “You’re German, right?”

“Yes, though I failed to pick up the accent.” She said dully.

Roman opened his mouth to ask another question, but Weiss already knew what it was.

“And yes, my name does translate to White Snow.” Her facial expression grew annoyed when Ruby laughed to.

“Haha! You’re first name is a color!” She giggled.

“Well, last I checked, yours is too Ruby.”

Roman laughed even harder when Ruby immediately shut up with a look of bewilderment across her face.

“You have my permission to use those characters.” He said while chuckling.

“It isn’t that funny.” Weiss said dully.

“It isn’t just you,” Roman gestured to the rest of the class, “so far everyone else is choosing characters that fit them in some way.” He smiled. “For example, Yang asked to be Goldie Locks, and Blake asked to be Bell from Beauty and the Beast. Nora wants to be Thor,”

Ruby chuckled and Weiss smirked at that.

“And Ren wants to be Mulan,” he said. “ya’ see, it’s funny.”

“I suppose it’s a bit amusing…” Weiss said with a small smile.

“Mr. Roman?”

The three turned to see three more people coming at them. Ruby recognized one of them as Mercury.

“We have our characters in mind.” One of them said. She had wavy black hair that covered one of her amber eyes. Mercury had dusty grey hair and greyish violet eyes. The third one had light, dusty green hair and deep red eyes and she also had a darker skin tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are we interrupting?” The black haired one asked, though the tone she apologized in sounded fake.

“Oh, no. You’re okay.” Ruby smiled.

“I don’t believe I’ve met you before?” The black haired girl asked.

“She’s the one I told you about from gym.” Mercury said, causing a light ‘ah’ from the girl.

“Well, it’s nice to meet the one who obliterated my friend in dodge ball.” She said while extending her hand.

“Sorry about that.” Ruby said to Mercury while shaking the girl’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it.’ He smirked.

“And, I’m Ruby.”

“Cinder,” The girl said, “and these two are Mercury and Emerald.”

“Hey.” They both said.

“Ruby, we should get back to work.” Weiss said suddenly. She had a slight scowl on her face, and she was looking directly at Cinder. Cinder gave her a challenging smirk, and tension filled the air around them.

“Let’s go.” Weiss grabbed Ruby’s wrist and dragged her off of the stage, not needing to look back to know about the look Cinder gave her.

“What was that about? Are you okay?” Ruby asked when they were a safe distance from the stage.

Weiss let go of her wrist. “Don’t let her fool you Ruby,” she said coldly. “Cinder is not all she pretends to be.”

Ruby gave Weiss a concerned look. “What… happened?”

Weiss was silent for a moment. “…Just don’t trust her Ruby. Not her, not Mercury, and not Emerald.”

“But-”

“It isn’t worth it Ruby.” Weiss grabbed Ruby’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “It isn’t worth it.”

Ruby noticed the pained look in Weiss’ eyes, and it was enough to convince her.

“…Alright.” Ruby sighed. “I trust you.”

Weiss relaxed and let go of Ruby’s shoulders. “Thank you…”

Ruby nodded her head slightly. She hesitantly held her arms out to hug Weiss, but rested them back at her sides instead.

“So… should we practice?” Weiss asked after a while.

“Sure.” Ruby smiled slightly, and Weiss returned it.

“Wanna’ start from the beginning?” Ruby asked.

“That would probably be best.” Weiss flipped her packet back to the first page. “I don’t have any lines yet, so you can start.”

“I don’t either.” Ruby said while skimming through her own. “I start on page three.”

“Alright. Then do you want to practice the lines we have together for now?” Weiss asked.

“Sure.”

The girls flipped to the page in their packets where they both start.

“Alright.” Ruby said, and started reading her lines.

She began at “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?!” Weiss began as well.

“Sorry.”

“Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused!?”

Both girls stopped and stared at their lines. They looked up at each other and then back down at their packets.

“It… says I crash into you.” Ruby said weakly. “And that I fall over and cause a bunch of stuff to fly everywhere…”

“Just like this morning…” Weiss continued. They looked up at each other again and had dumbfounded looks on their faces.

“What… does this mean?” Ruby asked dramatically.

“I have no clue.” Weiss answered back.

“What’s up girls? What’s with the dumbfounded looks?” Yang asked while walking over to them. Blake was following Yang while reading her script and didn’t know Yang stopped walking until she lightly bumped into her, causing her to look up.

“What’s with the dumbfounded looks?” Blake asked again, so sucked into the script that she didn’t hear Yang already ask it.

“Look at this.” Ruby said while showing them her and Weiss’ dialogue. “I’m person B and Weiss is person I.”

Yang took her script and held it to where she and Blake could read it. The more they read, the wider their grins grew.

“This is priceless!” Yang laughed. “This is almost exactly what happened in first period!”

“Look, Jaune even helps her up!” Blake smiled.

“Jaune?” Ruby and Weiss asked in unison.

Yang handed Ruby back her script. “We talked to the others to see who they were, and Jaune is Person C.”

Ruby looked at the page and saw that Person C helps her character up.

“Oh my stars.” Ruby breathed. “It’s almost as if this is us in an alternate universe!”

“A.U.’s don’t exist Ruby.” Weiss said flatly. “Although it is awfully strange.”

“Heheh, you wanna’ know something else?” Yang chuckled. “I’m Person F.”

Ruby flipped through her packet and eventually found that Person F and B are siblings.

“What the heck?!” Ruby gasped. “What is this?!”

“A huge coincidence.” Blake answered.

“Or it could be ALIENS!” Nora shouted, popping up out of nowhere. Ren shook his head slightly, following behind her.

“Nora you need to stop doing that!” Yang scolded while recovering from being scared half to death.

“Doing what?”

“Jumping out of nowhere at random times!”

“So you want me to jump out of nowhere at certain times?”

“No! I don’t want you doing that at all!”

“It is quite startling.” Blake added.

“And aliens?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah! They do exist you know!”

“Really?” Weiss asked with a look of doubt.

“Yeah really! I saw one myself.” Nora pointed at herself proudly. “It all began a year ago!” She narrated.

“Here we go again.” Ren said while rolling his eyes.

“I was in astronomy club with Ren and Blake, and we were assigned to explore the stars and beyond!”

“We had to draw a map of the constellations.” Ren corrected.

“Then, in the middle of our mission, we heard the beginnings of an alien war!”

“It was raining and she heard thunder while we were stargazing.”

“While we were taking cover in our trusty hideout, I looked through our ‘scope and saw a runaway alien soldier!”

“We went under the tarp canopy we set up and there was a mud spot on the lens.

“It moved Ren! And before I knew it, it was gone!”

“The rain washed it off.”

“I vowed I would someday capture that alien, and called to it with my warning!”

“She ran around my backyard screaming and woke up the neighbors.”

“I pulled out my weapon and fired a warning shot!”

“She stole pots and pans form my kitchen and clashed them together.”

“Then, the darned alien sent reinforcements!”

“Someone called the police.”

“But then, after seeing how dangerous I was, they retreated!”

“The police recognized Nora and asked her to calm down before taking their leave. They had dealt with her many times in the past for things like this.”

“And ever since then, I have been searching for that alien.”

“She’s been hooked on this for quite some time now.”

“I want to believe-!” Nora shouted while dragging out the last syllable.

Ren sighed and Blake face-palmed, giving up on trying to convince Nora about what actually happened that night.

“That’s… quite a story.” Ruby said.

“This is Nora we’re talking about.” Yang chuckled. “Though I doubt aliens are the reason for this.”

“Anyway, class is over in two minutes.” Weiss said. “We might want to start getting our things together.”

The group agreed and they went to go get their things. After packing up, the bell rang and the students took their leave.

“See you Weiss!” Ruby said with a smile.

Weiss nodded and waved slightly. “See you…”

The rest of the group started walking towered where detention was being held, and Ruby guessed that they all took part in the food fight as well. She noticed Jaune wasn’t with them, and saw that he was walking with the red haired girl from earlier.

“See ya’ Ruby!” He shouted and waved at her.

“Bye Jaune!” She waved back. “So, should I call Dad and ask him to pick me up?” She asked Yang.

“Oh, shoot. I forgot he had to stay late today…” Yang said while snapping her fingers.

“Oh, well I can just wait outside for you then.” Ruby said. “I’d actually like to explorer the school a bit; get to know the place.”

“Alright.” Yang said. “It should only be an hour.”

“ ‘Kay.”

The group made it to the room and went inside.

“See ya’ Ruby. Later little red. Watch out for aleins! Don’t mind her. Later sis!” They all said.

“Bye guys.” Ruby waved.

When the door closed behind them, Ruby started to wonder around the building, taking the time to look around at the things that hung on the walls.

“This entire school makes Vale Academy look like a child’s play set.” Ruby mumbled to herself.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that big.”

Ruby turned around to see a tall man with silver hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a green scarf over a deep green suit. He was leaning on a cane that was actually needed, and he extended his hand to her.

“It’s nice to finally meet you Miss Rose.” He smiled. “My name is Ozpin.”

    To be continued

Description
Disclaimer: I do not own Rwby or any of it's characters, songs, features, etc. I am only a fan. RWBY belongs to Roosterteeth and was created by Monty Oum. Songs were written by Jeff Williams.

Roses and Thorns

    Chapter 7: A New Coincidence

            Ruby sat awkwardly in her seat. ‘This class is huge.’

“How many people are in here again?” She asked Yang.

“About fifty,” she answered, “though a good portion of them are in stage tech.”

Ruby swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘And I thought first period was a big class…’

“Are you alright? You look stiff.” Blake asked while taking a seat next to Yang.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed is all. But I’ll be fine.” Ruby said while trying to relax.

“Yeah, I remember the first day we had this class.” Jaune said while shuddering at the memory. “That was not fun.”

“I remember that!” Nora laughed. “You tripped on your way up the stage and caused a few microphones to fall over, causing one of them to shorten out and blow a fuse! The power in that entire hallway was out for a whole day!”

“Please don’t remind me…” Jaune pulled his hood up over his face and shrunk in his seat.

“Why? It was hilarious.”

The five looked up to see a tall young man with orange hair and a black bowler hat standing in front of them. He was leaning on a hooked cane and had a tooth pick hanging out of his mouth.

“Though my favorite part was the priceless little look you had on your face.” He laughed. “Your eyes where the size of dinner plates!”

Jaune blushed deeply and shrunk even more. He mumbled out a small “It wasn’t that funny.”

“I’m just messin’ with ya’ kiddo.” The man smiled and turned to Ruby. “I actually came over here to meet you.” He said while pointing at her.

Ruby stood up and extended her hand. “Oh, uh, I’m Ruby Rose.”

Instead of shaking her hand, the man lightly slapped it, giving her a high five. “Nice to meet ya’ Red. Can I call you Red?”

“Uh-”

“I’m gonna’ call you Red.” His smile grew and he pointed to himself. “The name’s Torchwick; though I prefer to have my students call me Roman.”

“You’re a teacher?” Ruby asked absentmindedly and slapped her hand on her mouth as soon as she realized she said it.

Roman tilted his head back and huffed out a laugh. “Don’t look so guilty kid!” He said. “It isn’t the first time that’s happened… I actually find it quite amusing when someone mistakes me for a student.”

“I’ve done it to.” Yang said while smiling slightly. “But I still sometimes mistake the other one for a middle schooler.”

“Other one?” Ruby asked.

Roman chuckled and pointed up at the sound booth behind them. “You see that girl up there?”

Ruby turned around and looked up into the sound booth. She saw a young girl with pink and brown hair working with the sound board. She was wearing a black shirt that said ‘Tech Team’, and also had a headset resting around her neck.

“Her name’s Neapolitan, but she goes by Neo.” Roman explained. “She’s my assistant teacher; while I teach the theatrical part of class, she teaches and helps the kids in stage tech.”

“How…old is she?” Ruby asked. She could see why people mistook her for a middle schooler.

“She’s three months shy of being twenty.”

Yang laughed. “She looks twelve!”

“So… did she recently graduate?” Ruby asked.

Roman shook his head. “She graduated early and is taking college online. She works as my assistant as a part time job, which is why this class is so big; fourth period is the only class that teaches stage tech.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” Ruby smiled. She felt a slight connection with the girl, considering how Ruby ‘graduated’ from middle school two years early. Also because she finally knew someone who was actually shorter than her.

“It’s too bad she only gets one class to teach.” Roman said. “She’s pretty darn good at it for her condition.”

Ruby was about to ask him what he meant by ‘condition’ but he had already begun to walk away.

“Would ya’ look at the time!” He said while looking up at a clock on the wall. “I gotta’ get class started.” He hopped up on the stage and Ruby took her seat. Roman clapped his hands a few times to get everyone’s attention. When he had it, he cleared his throat and began.

“Alright class, as you know, we will be putting on a play here in a few months.”

When he said it, a large portion of the class began hooting and cheering slightly, while a few others groaned. ‘Whelp, that tells me who didn’t want this class but still got it.’ Ruby thought.

“Alright, alright, calm down everyone.” Roman said with a smile. “Now, seeing how we have a new student with us, and also the fact that some of you don’t like to listen, I will explain the play once again.” He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “This play will be graded on how well you can improvise, as well as memorize.” He said. “Large portions of the play are already scripted for you, and the rest -is not. The reason for this is because the characters do not exist yet… so there is only key dialogue and movements you have to memorize. With the rest, you have to improvise based on the character you have chosen to act out, of course, I have to give you permission to use that character first.” Roman twirled his cane in his hand and paced back and forth on the stage, making Ruby realize he didn’t actually need it. “You will have minimal props, and the rest you have to mime; though you will have costumes,” Roman smiled at some of the students’ reactions, “but you have to make whatever props and costumes you need yourself.” He laughed when their reactions changed. “Now, this will be a mixture of comedy, tragedy, adventure, and whatever you choose to make it.”

Yang leaned towered Ruby and whispered to her. “Fantasy violence.”

Ruby chuckled silently and shook her head. Fantasy violence was her and Yang’s favorite genre.

“Fantasy violence for example!” Roman announced and pointed the end of his cane at Yang.

“I didn’t think you heard that.” She said with a blank expression.

“I didn’t. I just know you that well.” Roman smiled and winked at her playfully.

Yang winked back and shot hand guns at him, and he returned the gesture, causing the class to laugh slightly.

“As I said before, the play will be in a few months, so you have plenty of time to choose your characters, make your props and costumes, and practice.” He smiled. “So you should ace this easy, I mean, unless you choose to not work and end up procrastinating until the last second.” He smiled.

Some of the students shuffled awkwardly in their seats. Ruby almost laughed when Yang blew out a soft whistle and shifted awkwardly as well.

“Now, my part of the class, I would like to all to choose a partner to practice your scripts with. Whoever you choose will be your partner up until the play, so choose wisely; though you have my permission to work with other pairs.” The class mumbled amongst themselves; friend groups already pairing up just by giving each other the ‘yo bud, how you doin’ ’ look.

“Tech team, I want you to get instructions from Neo on what to do for the play.” Roman said. As if on que, Neo appeared on the stage. Ruby nearly choked on her own breath when seeing Neo at a closer perspective. ‘She really does look twelve!’ Neo made a motion with her hand, and the tech students stood up and went with her into the sound booth.

“I’ll go get your scripts from my office, so in the meantime partner up.” At that, he walked off the stage and went to go get the scripts.

The students immediately started getting in pairs. Ruby had no idea who team up with, so she just sat there, thinking about her options.

‘Let’s see… there’s Yang and Blake, though they might want to pair up… there’s also Nora and Ren…’ Ruby looked up to see Nora hug attack the poor boy, but he only smiled and awkwardly hugged her back. ‘Okay, never mind… there is also Su- he paired up with the blue haired guy… hmm… oh! Jaune!’ Ruby looked up again and saw him talking to a tall red haired girl. They seemed like they had already paired up so Ruby went back to choosing her options. ‘Okay… oh! Velvet and Yatsu-what’s his name are also here!... but they have partners too…hmmm.’

“I hate to break you from whatever you’re thinking about, but it seems you don’t have a partner.”

Ruby looked up and saw Weiss standing in front of her.

“And quite frankly, neither do I.”

Ruby looked around the room, then back up at Weiss. She slowly pointed to herself.

Weiss rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Yes, I’m talking to you, ya’ dolt.”

Ruby stood up and awkwardly put her hands in her hoody pocket. She shyly shrugged her shoulders and looked Weiss in the eyes. “…Would you… like to be partners?”

“That’s what I was hinting at, yes.”

Ruby blushed slightly and shuffled on her feet. “Soooo… what would you like to practice? The improv. or the memorization?”

“I think we should look over our scripts fist.” Weiss said. “That way we have a better idea on how to approach this.”

Ruby nodded her head. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Hopefully it won’t get screwed up this time.” Weiss said.

Ruby felt her heart sink a little, but then she saw Weiss’ smile.

“I’m just messing with you Ruby.” She said.

Ruby smiled back. “Oh, heheh…”

An awkward silence fell on the two.

“Alright, I have your scripts!” Roman announced when he was back on the stage. “Pick as randomly as you like. It doesn’t matter which one you get.” He plopped the large pile of packets down onto the stage, and the students went up and grabbed them.

Ruby and Weiss both grabbed a random packet and sat down by the wall. Everyone was scattered around the theatre, so they went somewhere where there was a little more space.

“Who’d you get?” Ruby asked. She saw that at the top of her packet, a set of bold letters read ‘Person B’, and all of person B’s lines were highlighted.

“I have Person I.” Weiss said. “What about you?”

“I got Person B.” She said.

Weiss skimmed through the packet, trying to figure out how to read it.

“It looks like most of the lines are written for us.” She said. “And the blank underlined spaces are where we are supposed to improvise.”

Ruby looked through her packet as well and nodded in agreement. “Looks like I have a ton to improvise…” Ruby said somewhat defeatedly.

“Mine says I have to come up with a small catchphrase for my character.” Weiss said, while holding her chin in thought.

Ruby giggled and whispered, “You could use your whole ‘dunce/dolt’ thing you got goin’.”

“That could actually work.” Weiss said while raising her eyebrows.

“Whoa, wait I was just kiddi-”

“No, that’s actually something I could use.” Weiss interrupted. “From the looks of the rest of my script, it fits my character’s personality perfectly.”

“O-oh… well, alright then. I was also gonna’ say ‘bazainga!’ but the other one’s better.” Ruby smiled.

“… Bazainga?” Weiss repeated flatly.

Ruby looked at her for a few seconds then coughed once. “Never mind that…”

Weiss rolled her eyes with a smirk and went back to reading through her script.

“Do you know who you want your character to be yet?” Ruby asked after a while.

“I have one in mind, but I’m not certain if they need to match the personalities of our characters.” Weiss answered.

Ruby shrugged her shoulders. “Wanna’ go ask?”

“Sure.” Weiss said while standing up.

Ruby stood up as well and they went to go ask Roman. There were a few students already talking to him, so they had to wait a few minutes.

“What about you,” Weiss asked, “have you decided yet?”

“I’m hoping to be Red Riding Hood.” Ruby said.

“Why am I not surprised?” Weiss smiled.

Ruby looked at her for a few seconds. “…Weiss sure has been smiling a lot recently… it’s a really pretty smile.” She said softly.

“Wh-what?” Weiss’ brows furrowed and she blushed slightly.

“What?! Wait- I didn’t mean to- ah- um… never mind!” Ruby looked away from Weiss and mentally kicked herself for accidentally saying it out loud.

They both stood there awkwardly until Roman walked up to them. “May I help you ladies with anything?” He asked.

“Yes please.” Weiss said while trying to get rid of her blush. “We were wondering if the characters we choose have to match the personalities of the lines in the script?”

“Nope.” Roman smiled while popping the ‘p’. “Who would you like to be?”

“I’d like to be Red Riding Hood.” Ruby said, causing Roman to laugh.

“I figured as much. Your red hoodie pretty much shouts ‘Red Riding Hood’.”

“Heheh, yeah…” Ruby tried her best to push away any sad thought that crossed her mind; her mother made her that hoodie after all.

“What about you?” Roman asked, turning to Weiss.

“I’d like to be Snow White.” She said. She flinched when Roman barked out laughing, gaining some of the students’ attention.

“That’s amazing!” He laughed. “You’re German, right?”

“Yes, though I failed to pick up the accent.” She said dully.

Roman opened his mouth to ask another question, but Weiss already knew what it was.

“And yes, my name does translate to White Snow.” Her facial expression grew annoyed when Ruby laughed to.

“Haha! You’re first name is a color!” She giggled.

“Well, last I checked, yours is too Ruby.”

Roman laughed even harder when Ruby immediately shut up with a look of bewilderment across her face.

“You have my permission to use those characters.” He said while chuckling.

“It isn’t that funny.” Weiss said dully.

“It isn’t just you,” Roman gestured to the rest of the class, “so far everyone else is choosing characters that fit them in some way.” He smiled. “For example, Yang asked to be Goldie Locks, and Blake asked to be Bell from Beauty and the Beast. Nora wants to be Thor,”

Ruby chuckled and Weiss smirked at that.

“And Ren wants to be Mulan,” he said. “ya’ see, it’s funny.”

“I suppose it’s a bit amusing…” Weiss said with a small smile.

“Mr. Roman?”

The three turned to see three more people coming at them. Ruby recognized one of them as Mercury.

“We have our characters in mind.” One of them said. She had wavy black hair that covered one of her amber eyes. Mercury had dusty grey hair and greyish violet eyes. The third one had light, dusty green hair and deep red eyes and she also had a darker skin tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are we interrupting?” The black haired one asked, though the tone she apologized in sounded fake.

“Oh, no. You’re okay.” Ruby smiled.

“I don’t believe I’ve met you before?” The black haired girl asked.

“She’s the one I told you about from gym.” Mercury said, causing a light ‘ah’ from the girl.

“Well, it’s nice to meet the one who obliterated my friend in dodge ball.” She said while extending her hand.

“Sorry about that.” Ruby said to Mercury while shaking the girl’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it.’ He smirked.

“And, I’m Ruby.”

“Cinder,” The girl said, “and these two are Mercury and Emerald.”

“Hey.” They both said.

“Ruby, we should get back to work.” Weiss said suddenly. She had a slight scowl on her face, and she was looking directly at Cinder. Cinder gave her a challenging smirk, and tension filled the air around them.

“Let’s go.” Weiss grabbed Ruby’s wrist and dragged her off of the stage, not needing to look back to know about the look Cinder gave her.

“What was that about? Are you okay?” Ruby asked when they were a safe distance from the stage.

Weiss let go of her wrist. “Don’t let her fool you Ruby,” she said coldly. “Cinder is not all she pretends to be.”

Ruby gave Weiss a concerned look. “What… happened?”

Weiss was silent for a moment. “…Just don’t trust her Ruby. Not her, not Mercury, and not Emerald.”

“But-”

“It isn’t worth it Ruby.” Weiss grabbed Ruby’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “It isn’t worth it.”

Ruby noticed the pained look in Weiss’ eyes, and it was enough to convince her.

“…Alright.” Ruby sighed. “I trust you.”

Weiss relaxed and let go of Ruby’s shoulders. “Thank you…”

Ruby nodded her head slightly. She hesitantly held her arms out to hug Weiss, but rested them back at her sides instead.

“So… should we practice?” Weiss asked after a while.

“Sure.” Ruby smiled slightly, and Weiss returned it.

“Wanna’ start from the beginning?” Ruby asked.

“That would probably be best.” Weiss flipped her packet back to the first page. “I don’t have any lines yet, so you can start.”

“I don’t either.” Ruby said while skimming through her own. “I start on page three.”

“Alright. Then do you want to practice the lines we have together for now?” Weiss asked.

“Sure.”

The girls flipped to the page in their packets where they both start.

“Alright.” Ruby said, and started reading her lines.

She began at “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?!” Weiss began as well.

“Sorry.”

“Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused!?”

Both girls stopped and stared at their lines. They looked up at each other and then back down at their packets.

“It… says I crash into you.” Ruby said weakly. “And that I fall over and cause a bunch of stuff to fly everywhere…”

“Just like this morning…” Weiss continued. They looked up at each other again and had dumbfounded looks on their faces.

“What… does this mean?” Ruby asked dramatically.

“I have no clue.” Weiss answered back.

“What’s up girls? What’s with the dumbfounded looks?” Yang asked while walking over to them. Blake was following Yang while reading her script and didn’t know Yang stopped walking until she lightly bumped into her, causing her to look up.

“What’s with the dumbfounded looks?” Blake asked again, so sucked into the script that she didn’t hear Yang already ask it.

“Look at this.” Ruby said while showing them her and Weiss’ dialogue. “I’m person B and Weiss is person I.”

Yang took her script and held it to where she and Blake could read it. The more they read, the wider their grins grew.

“This is priceless!” Yang laughed. “This is almost exactly what happened in first period!”

“Look, Jaune even helps her up!” Blake smiled.

“Jaune?” Ruby and Weiss asked in unison.

Yang handed Ruby back her script. “We talked to the others to see who they were, and Jaune is Person C.”

Ruby looked at the page and saw that Person C helps her character up.

“Oh my stars.” Ruby breathed. “It’s almost as if this is us in an alternate universe!”

“A.U.’s don’t exist Ruby.” Weiss said flatly. “Although it is awfully strange.”

“Heheh, you wanna’ know something else?” Yang chuckled. “I’m Person F.”

Ruby flipped through her packet and eventually found that Person F and B are siblings.

“What the heck?!” Ruby gasped. “What is this?!”

“A huge coincidence.” Blake answered.

“Or it could be ALIENS!” Nora shouted, popping up out of nowhere. Ren shook his head slightly, following behind her.

“Nora you need to stop doing that!” Yang scolded while recovering from being scared half to death.

“Doing what?”

“Jumping out of nowhere at random times!”

“So you want me to jump out of nowhere at certain times?”

“No! I don’t want you doing that at all!”

“It is quite startling.” Blake added.

“And aliens?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah! They do exist you know!”

“Really?” Weiss asked with a look of doubt.

“Yeah really! I saw one myself.” Nora pointed at herself proudly. “It all began a year ago!” She narrated.

“Here we go again.” Ren said while rolling his eyes.

“I was in astronomy club with Ren and Blake, and we were assigned to explore the stars and beyond!”

“We had to draw a map of the constellations.” Ren corrected.

“Then, in the middle of our mission, we heard the beginnings of an alien war!”

“It was raining and she heard thunder while we were stargazing.”

“While we were taking cover in our trusty hideout, I looked through our ‘scope and saw a runaway alien soldier!”

“We went under the tarp canopy we set up and there was a mud spot on the lens.

“It moved Ren! And before I knew it, it was gone!”

“The rain washed it off.”

“I vowed I would someday capture that alien, and called to it with my warning!”

“She ran around my backyard screaming and woke up the neighbors.”

“I pulled out my weapon and fired a warning shot!”

“She stole pots and pans form my kitchen and clashed them together.”

“Then, the darned alien sent reinforcements!”

“Someone called the police.”

“But then, after seeing how dangerous I was, they retreated!”

“The police recognized Nora and asked her to calm down before taking their leave. They had dealt with her many times in the past for things like this.”

“And ever since then, I have been searching for that alien.”

“She’s been hooked on this for quite some time now.”

“I want to believe-!” Nora shouted while dragging out the last syllable.

Ren sighed and Blake face-palmed, giving up on trying to convince Nora about what actually happened that night.

“That’s… quite a story.” Ruby said.

“This is Nora we’re talking about.” Yang chuckled. “Though I doubt aliens are the reason for this.”

“Anyway, class is over in two minutes.” Weiss said. “We might want to start getting our things together.”

The group agreed and they went to go get their things. After packing up, the bell rang and the students took their leave.

“See you Weiss!” Ruby said with a smile.

Weiss nodded and waved slightly. “See you…”

The rest of the group started walking towered where detention was being held, and Ruby guessed that they all took part in the food fight as well. She noticed Jaune wasn’t with them, and saw that he was walking with the red haired girl from earlier.

“See ya’ Ruby!” He shouted and waved at her.

“Bye Jaune!” She waved back. “So, should I call Dad and ask him to pick me up?” She asked Yang.

“Oh, shoot. I forgot he had to stay late today…” Yang said while snapping her fingers.

“Oh, well I can just wait outside for you then.” Ruby said. “I’d actually like to explorer the school a bit; get to know the place.”

“Alright.” Yang said. “It should only be an hour.”

“ ‘Kay.”

The group made it to the room and went inside.

“See ya’ Ruby. Later little red. Watch out for aleins! Don’t mind her. Later sis!” They all said.

“Bye guys.” Ruby waved.

When the door closed behind them, Ruby started to wonder around the building, taking the time to look around at the things that hung on the walls.

“This entire school makes Vale Academy look like a child’s play set.” Ruby mumbled to herself.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that big.”

Ruby turned around to see a tall man with silver hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a green scarf over a deep green suit. He was leaning on a cane that was actually needed, and he extended his hand to her.

“It’s nice to finally meet you Miss Rose.” He smiled. “My name is Ozpin.”

    To be continued