-Ruby POV-
The entire team staggered tiredly into their dorm room as another day of classes came to an end.
Thankfully, tomorrow was the weekend because Ruby at least definitely needed a few days to recover from combat class and she didn't want or need Weiss yelling at her for falling asleep during one of the more boring academic classes if she could avoid it.
Even though Weiss didn't look so good herself after the butt kicking they had gotten from the mysterious teacher's assistant, Alexandria Cross.
Speaking of her partner, Weiss had managed to at least sit fully on her bed, unlike Ruby who only got about halfway before her legs gave out and she faceplanted into the mattress with her legs splayed out on the floor. The rug was actually hurting her knees a little, but she couldn't muster up the energy to do much about it.
At least she judged she was better than Yang, who decided collapsing face first on the floor was fine. Which put her third place overall on the team since Blake had managed to collapse bonelessly into a chair before she lost all will to move.
Part of her felt as team leader she should be trying to cheer the rest of the team up, but the rest of her was tired and in pain and decided being team leader could take a backseat until it no longer hurt to move.
"There has got to be something up with her." Yang grumbled into the floor. "It's way too suspicious that nobody knows anything about her."
"Can't we give it a rest?" Blake moaned from her chair. "We already talked about this. It's not like we're entitled to her history just because we're curious."
"Yeah, but that was when Weiss-cream was getting all heated about her little gizmo thing. Not when she beat us into the pavement and made it look easy."
"We put up a better fight than most of the other teams." Ruby mumbled, attempting to defend the team's honor. "I think only JNPR was the only other one that was even close to us."
"Yes, the team with Mistral's Champion that lost to someone no one has ever heard of." Weiss said tiredly. "And while I won't pretend that it's not possible to be a capable fighter without being a public figure, it's still odd that there's so little around her. Combined with her age and the Aura devices she apparently created, it's almost inconceivable that no one has heard of her."
Right, because Alex was only maybe a year or two older than Yang…
"She's still entitled to her privacy." Blake grunted.
Ruby was vaguely aware of her sister rolling so she could get a better look at her partner. "Are you saying you aren't curious?" Yang demanded.
"...okay, maybe a little." Blake eventually admitted. "But what are we going to do about it? Beacon would probably kick us out if we start hacking into staff files even if we knew how to do that – which we don't – and we already discovered there isn't a whole lot of public information about her to dig up."
Yang started to respond and eventually deflated with a huff when she couldn't come up with a solid idea while Weiss just grumbled to herself a bit.
"We could try following her this weekend?" Ruby offered, sort of flopping to the side so she could see the rest of the room. "Nurse Leona mentioned that they were heading into Vale to meet with some people, so maybe that could give us some clues about where she came from?"
Three heads turned towards her and though Ruby was too tired to flinch at the sudden attention, she couldn't help but worry her idea was a bad one.
"That's a great idea, Ruby!" Yang cheered.
"A little reconnaissance wouldn't hurt." Weiss nodded as well.
Blake…either nodded in acceptance or had fallen asleep in her chair.
Ruby was tempted to copy her, but the fact she had just convinced the team to follow a teacher tomorrow meant she needed to come up with a plan. There was no time to sleep now!
-o-
"Rubes, wake up. You're drooling on my arm." Ruby felt someone jabbing her side and startled awake.
"I'm up! I wasn't sleeping!"
From the looks on everyone's faces, no one believed her. But that was fine! Because they were here on a mission and didn't have time to talk about who was or wasn't sleeping.
"Alright Team RWBY, we're now in Vale! Before we can start our mission to tail Ms Cross, there is one critical step we need to take…finding her."
"Alright!" Yang cheered, throwing her arms in the air while Weiss huffed and crossed her own.
Blake just pointed off to the side and said, "She's right over there."
They followed where she was pointing and, sure enough, there was their teacher casually stepping onto one of the public buses.
"Quick, after her!"
Team RWBY ran after the bus and managed to slip in the second door unnoticed by their target. From there it was just a matter of occasionally peaking over the seats at every stop to see if Ms Cross was getting off.
After a handful of stops, the team managed to follow the teacher off the bus without getting seen and followed her as she walked around the city.
Most of the places Alex stopped at were seemingly pretty normal. Window shopping at various stores, getting a drink at a coffee shop, placing what seemed to be an order for something to be delivered to Beacon from a hardware store…the usual things that someone would do on their days off.
Ruby was actually starting to worry that she had wasted her team's time with nothing to show for it. At least until Alex got a call on her scroll and quickly started heading for another part of town near the docks.
This could be their chance to learn something!
They carefully followed after their teacher from a distance that wasn't too far back that they would completely lose track of her if she took an unexpected turn, something that was helped out by the thinning crowds as they moved further away from the main city. That did mean that Team RWBY had to start hanging back farther and farther though to not get spotted themselves.
Which meant they almost lost her when she turned down an alleyway instead of continuing down the main streets, and almost got caught when they rushed to make sure they didn't lose her. Only Blake pulling them back so they could peek around the corner to see Alex and what looked like another Huntsman right there in the middle of a conversation.
"–to hear that everyone is getting settled." Alex finished saying. "But it doesn't sound like you're going with them?"
"Sean and I are a bit too old for that line of work anymore. Once the last of them ship out, we're probably going to retire." The unnamed Huntsman said, rubbing at a leg. Ruby had seen her Dad do something similar enough to know he was probably remembering a time he got hurt there at some point.
"Any idea what you're going to do?"
"I don't recognize that Huntsman. Do any of you?" Yang whispered, making Ruby miss whatever the unknown guy was saying.
"I don't think he's local." Ruby added. "From the sound of it, he was with a big group of people that are only temporarily in Vale. But what would they be here for?"
"Thornbell was overrun by Grimm a little while ago, maybe they were part of that?" Blake theorised.
"Maybe if you all would listen instead of talking we could figure it out!" Weiss hissed.
Ruby and Yang made a show of zipping their mouths shut and they all went back to listening in on the conversation in the alley.
Not much of it was immediately interesting though. Alex asked a few questions about people they both apparently knew with the guy Ruby still didn't know the name of giving some short answers and occasionally going into a tangential story about them, but nothing that would tell them more about their teacher.
At least until the still unknown Huntsman asked about Alex's plans for the future.
"Not a whole lot until the second semester break. For the most part Leona and I'll just be doing our jobs at Beacon and collecting information," Alex said, "depending on what we discover we'll either focus on the White Fang situation or go hunting."
The Huntsman shifted awkwardly. "Look kid, I understand wanting to take that woman down, but–"
"But nothing Dann." Alex interrupted with a cold voice. "Her group has destroyed two towns at least, not to mention all the other shit they've pulled. If I manage to find her, she dies."
"Haaaah, just– just don't go throwing everything away for revenge. Take it from me, if you live long enough – things that you were sure were worth it start looking like mistakes."
"Don't worry about it." Alex waved him off. "Raven isn't the first person I've had a grudge against," – Ruby heard Yang inhale sharply at the name – "and I didn't go into some kind of revenge spiral then. I know what I'm doing."
"Yeah? And what happened to that person?"
"I stabbed him through the heart and burned him to ash." This time everyone stiffened as their teacher blandly admitted to killing someone. Ruby knew Huntsmen occasionally had to do so, but to hear someone almost their age just say it…
It was relieving that the Huntsman – Dann – obviously wasn't thrilled about the idea either. "I suppose that was before you and your friend made it out our way. Fine. I can't exactly stop you, but if you ever need advice…"
"I'll make sure to call Sean." Alex deadpanned, getting a laugh from the man.
"Ha! I knew Leona was my favorite for a reason! Now enough heavy talk, some of the folk splitting off from us wanted to say goodbye and thank you again for what you did before they left. Better get moving now unless we want it to take all night."
The two of them started moving away but this time Team RWBY didn't follow after them. They were all too busy trying to deal with what they had learned about their assistant combat teacher.
Sure they had wanted to learn more about her super mysterious past, but Ruby felt like they had more questions now than when they started. And then there was that one thing…
She turned to her sister. "When she said Raven…do you think…?"
Yang shook her head, "I have no idea. I want to say no, because whoever she's talking about sounds like bad news, but…"
"Wait, do you actually know who Alexandria was talking about?" Weiss half asked, half demanded.
"Doubt it." Yang shrugged. "My mom's name is Raven, but she ran off not long after I was born. I've been looking around for where she might have gone now and then but I never managed to find anything so whoever Raven the teach was talking about probably isn't the same person."
"She was on the same team as our parents and uncle too, so she's not the kind of person to destroy towns either." Ruby spoke up as well.
"It's likely a coincidence, Raven isn't all that unique of a name." Blake agreed. "What I want to know more about is what she meant by 'White Fang situation'. Because I didn't even know the White Fang were even doing anything in the city let alone that they were doing something big enough to be considered a situation."
"That's not surprising. Those degenerates are good at staying in the shadows until they decide to cause mayhem through some criminal act." Weiss nodded sagely.
Blake bristled slightly. "Not everything the White Fang does is criminal," she said heatedly, "they intervene in a lot of situations where Faunus are being exploited. Maybe it's something like that."
Ruby's partner sighed and shook her head. "They say that they do that, but in actuality–"
"Oh, shoot!" Ruby exclaimed suddenly as her scroll buzzed an alarm. "Guys, the last Bullhead back to beacon leaves in twenty minutes! We need to move!"
Budding argument forgotten for now, all four of them sprinted back towards the landing pads. But what they learned and what it could mean weighed heavily in the back of Ruby's mind. She knew just the Raven situation would bug Yang until her sister managed to find a way to talk to their teacher about it without giving away that they had been trailing her, and the other things they overheard sounded serious too.
They might have learned a little about Alexandria Cross today, but this definitely wasn't the end of Team RWBY's investigation…
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