Ice to The Point
The weekend had finally come after a long and dangerous week. Ruby and Yang went back home to Patch, and most of the gaggle of friends went with Azura to some of his clan's holdings in Vale for the weekend to unwind. All that was left was Weiss. Not wanting to go back to the miserable stretch of Atlesian real estate called a home, she stayed behind. Now hard at work, her notebook opened, and a giant board now lay in front of her. Various newspaper clippings, string lines, security camera photos and post it notes strung about it in what was supposed to be a coherent fashion. At least for Weiss.
"Now, with the bathroom incident put up, that just leaves Ruby's recent behavior." Weiss said as she pulled up her notebook.
However, before she could, she heard someone trying to turn the locked doorknob to open the door. The sound nearly made Weiss jump out of her skin, since the rest of her team was supposed to be gone for the weekend. The voice she heard call out to her certainly did not make her worry any less.
"Weiss? Why is the door locked?" Blake's voice called out from the other side.
"Blake?! W-What are you doing here?" Weiss said in a jolt.
"I came back to relax for a while because the others are making plans for all of us to drag Azura to an amusement park. Apparently, he's afraid of roller coasters." Blake's voice told her teammate.
"Why are they… never mind. I'm busy." Weiss said, shaking off her surprise and trying to get back to her work.
"If you're busy with something, I'll come help you." Blake replied as the sound of a key being turned to unlock the door was heard.
Before Weiss could use one of her Glyphs to keep the door locked, Blake opened the door and walked in. The two girls froze as Blake saw her Schnee Heiress teammate's conspiracy board while Weiss was left looking like a deer caught in headlights.
"... Weiss? Is that one of those boards you see conspiracy theorists working on in movies?" Blake asked, pointing to the board.
"No, it's an evidence board. Completely different." Weiss said, writing out more sticky notes to put up.
"I'm pretty sure that's a conspiracy board." Blake replied with uncertainty.
"It isn't because my evidence pieces aren't conspiracies, they are facts. There have been a lot of very strange things happening lately." Weiss said simply, knowing now Blake will just think she was nuts and just make fun of her like usual.
However, to the shock of the heiress, Blake simply shut and locked the door, sat down, and looked at her. "How can I help?" The black-haired ninja girl asked.
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Weiss said, turning around in disbelief on her heels.
"How can I help? If there really is something legitimately strange going on, I want to help you figure it out." Blake repeated, explaining herself a bit more.
"Alright, if you're going to help, I'm not going to talk to you from across the room." Weiss said simply before heading back to her board.
Nodding, Blake stood up and walked over to get a good look at the board. To her surprise, Weiss was more right than she thought. On the board were various strange occurrences that she had originally brushed off and forgotten. Coincidentally, all of them involved their younger team leader and friend.
"It all started when Jaune had the whole thing with his Nightmare. From where Pyrrha and Jaune were in the courtyard, there is zero-way Ruby could have heard them as clearly as she did. Cardin, as far as I can tell, was at least within earshot." Weiss explained, showing the photos and things she collected from the courtyard security cameras.
"... How did you get your hands on those security camera pictures?" Blake asked a bit worriedly.
"I have my sources." Weiss curtly answered.
"I was afraid of that. But that is certainly odd. Unless Ruby had hearing like mine, she shouldn't have been able to hear that." Blake said, catching herself too late on what she said.
"What do you mean by that, Blake?" Weiss asked, raising an eyebrow.
Now it was Blake's turn to look like a deer caught in headlights. Sighing, seeing that she had no way out of this, she looked at her teammate. "I have… a secret I have been keeping from you all, Weiss. Please just… don't be angry with me…" She admitted.
"I promise." Weiss answered with a nod.
Taking a deep breath, Blake gently removed her signature ribbon. To Weiss's surprise, as soon as she did, black cat ears flopped out free from her hair beneath the bow.
"That's… I didn't think… gods, that's clever…" Weiss said, her face shifting through emotions quite rapidly.
Blake nodded as Weiss then took a moment to remember Blake's last name. 'Faunus… cat ears… Belladonna…' She thought.
"Belladonna... You mean your part of the imperial house of Menagerie? The Belladonna family?" Weiss asked stunned as she realized the implications.
Gulping a bit nervously, Blake nodded silently, afraid of her teammate's reaction. However, what Weiss said and did next surprised her.
"I will keep this a secret if you keep this a secret. Is that fair?" Weiss asked her.
Blake was surprised by Weiss's cordial response but nodded. "O-Okay. Now let's get back to it…" She replied, putting her serious face back on.
"Now then, you were saying?" Weiss asked.
"Being a cat Faunus with cat ears as my Faunus trait, my hearing is as sharp as a panther's. Much stronger than any human. For Ruby to have heard that conversation from so far away, she would have needed to have hearing relatively as sharp as mine with my cat ears." Blake explained.
"Ruby isn't clever like you. There's no way she could have hidden Faunus ears this whole time if she had them." Weiss answered, nodding in agreement.
"And she isn't the type who would have planted an electronic bug on one of her friends. Which raises the question: How did she hear it?" Blake added with a contemplative look on her face.
"We will have to put a pin in that. Next up, before the parent teacher conferences, remember that incident with Trivia?" Weiss asked, putting a to-be-continued pin in the hearing part of the board.
Blake nodded. "Her pulling Trivia's head out of the toilet and ripping the toilet out of the floor in the process. At first, I chalked that up to simply being Aura-enhanced strength. But, looking back on it now, I am not as certain…" She continued for her friend.
"Azura and Yang tried to get her head out. Both of those two should have greater strength than Ruby. Granted she needs strength to swing that massive scythe of hers, but still. Water pressure wasn't that strong. Azura is six feet tall and very toned and well-muscled while Yang is four inches taller than Ruby and much more muscular looking." Weiss added.
"Ruby should also have much more control over her strength to not rip the toilet out of the floor. Even if Ruby did have that kind of strength when enhanced by Aura, it should have taken much more effort than that. She did it almost effortlessly while Yang and even Azura to some extent were shown putting in some effort while trying to not damage the toilet." Blake agreed.
"That is not the only strength feat that is patently preposterous. Remember Azura testing all of us near the start of the year?" Weiss asked Blake, getting an immediate hard reaction from her.
Blake's eyes widened a bit at that. "He fought us about three or four against one and was easily keeping up with entire teams on his own. He was also seemingly just having fun while doing so, as if he were playing with us. Ruby, on the other hand, made him exert actual effort when she got angry and even broke his ribs through his Aura…" She noted in disbelief.
"That's not even getting into the Emerald Forest with her 'upgraded form of her semblance' thing that Yang said. Yang tends to get very cagey about Ruby fairly quickly, I just realized. Most incidents of Ruby being very odd if Yang is around, she gets very defensive and outright cagey. Have you noticed that?" Weiss asked, swiftly realizing and soon adding this info to the board.
Blake nodded in response. "I originally thought that that was simply normal older sibling behavior. I would not know since I'm an only child." She replied, starting to think it over.
"That is not a normal level. Or my own weird childhood is biting me. Either way, it seems excessive." Weiss said, trying to avoid the uncomfortable bits of her life.
"This all must to be connected somehow. The only question is… how? What logical explanation could there be…?" Blake thought aloud.
"One more thing to factor in. Ruby's injuries earlier this week." Weiss brought up, pointing to a picture she took of Ruby's full set of injuries, shocking and horrifying Blake.
"By the gods! How could she even move like that!?" Blake exclaimed uncharacteristically out of concern.
"She got those wounds after a failed Dust robbery in the old industrial district…" Weiss said before being cut off.
"The one where a warehouse partially collapsed. That cannot be a coincidence…" Blake finished, becoming increasingly worried.
"Indeed. Rumors in the police circulate that it was a botched organized crime job using White Fang elements. Since you seem to know a thing or two about that lot, does the name Kong mean anything?" Weiss asked.
"Shao Kong? But he's one of the strongest and most respected lieutenants of the Vale chapter of the White Fang. He'd rather die than willingly work for a human criminal unless ordered to by someone else that he respected…" Blake explained to her friend.
"The seeming leader of this attempt, however, is a known Dust thief. Roman Torchwick. Someone our dearest leader has had a clash within the past." Weiss explained, pointing to his picture.
Blake immediately got where Weiss was going with this. "Are… are you saying that she fought Kong? Alone!? And somehow not only escaped with her life but brought that part of the warehouse down in the process!?" Blake asked, starting to get frantic with worry.
"Explains her wounds and the botched robbery, does it not?" Weiss said, her own worry started to leak through.
Blake took a deep breath to compose herself. "That… that should be impossible. Kong has fought graduated Huntsmen and won. As well as tore through military grade security robots like they were made of paper. So how did Ruby…?" Blake began as Weiss continued where she left off.
"I don't know. That's what beats in my head like a hammer, as if the truth is toying with me." Weiss said with a sigh.
"There has to be some explanation for how all of this is possible. It feels like the truth is staring us in the face and we're just not seeing it…" Blake replied with a nod, adopting a thinking face.
"It's funny. All of this has happened, and Ruby has yet to be reprimanded by Ozpin over destruction of property and other incidents. At first, I thought him chewing me out was a one off. I'm starting to think it's a trend." Weiss mused mournfully.
Blake raised an eyebrow at the heiress's words. "You think that Ozpin knows and is keeping it to himself?" She asked.
"If he does, I don't see how we are getting it out of him. He taught Team STRQ, who happen to be Ruby and Yang's parents and uncle. Wait a minute…" Weiss said, catching herself.
Blake's eyes widened in shock at the realization. "What if the answer to this is connected to Team STRQ!?" Blake asked in disbelief.
"There are public records in the library. We should be able to find something. The question is what do we do about our team leader, and her giant golden guard dog?" Weiss asked her new partner-in-crime.
Blake sighed in response. "We can't go to Yang and Ruby about this. If they were ready to tell us, they would have." The cat-eared ninja girl noted.
"Conversely, is it something that they don't wish us to know…?" Weiss pondered.
"Or something that they're afraid of us knowing?" Blake finished for her.
"We are their teammates. If it's something that might be quite severe and could be a risk to our safety, don't we have a right to know?" Weiss asked.
"If they thought that us knowing would put us in danger, then maybe that's why they haven't told us? Or maybe they're afraid of how we'll react to… whatever this is…?" Blake asked, though not sounding entirely convinced herself.
"At this point, it's gone beyond that. Ruby tore herself up, harmed her friends, and potentially far more and worse." Weiss sternly said.
"Regardless of why they kept it from us, they're still our teammates. Our friends. If they're keeping this from us for either their safety, ours, or both, we need to find out what it is so that we can help." Blake insisted, a determined look on her face.
"For once… I think we are in agreement." Weiss hesitantly said as the two began to make plans.