Cinder Falls... For Ruby Rose (ch5)

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Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

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														Chapter 5. Ambush

It took some prodding on Emerald, Mercury, and Neo's parts, but eventually, they managed to get Cinder to talk about her outing with Ruby Rose the next morning.

Considering the fact that she'd locked them all out of the room last night, their leader's love life had been all they'd been discussing as they spent a night out in the hallway.

By the time they were allowed back in the next morning, Cinder had already gotten dressed and made her bed up, and the little panther plushie was nowhere to be seen.

It had started off with a lot of treading on eggshells on their part, but eventually Emerald had just asked their leader straight up.

"So? How'd it go yesterday? I'm guessing well?"

And they all braced themselves for another heat wave.

But surprisingly, Cinder reacted... normally.

She was a bit tight-lipped at first, but evidently, she'd secretly been wanting to brag about her so-called 'date' to a certain degree.

And so she told them everything, but kept things very vague. She never told them about Ruby Rose's cute mannerisms or the sparkle in her silver eyes. She simply told them about how they had gone around the fairgrounds and Cinder had mainly watched her play a few games.

"I even tried my hand at one," she said flatly. "But only to repay a favor."

While her teammates were trying to no avail to shut their jaws that had dropped in disbelief at the idea of Cinder Fall /playing a game/, Cinder finished up her story simply.

"After that, she needed to be somewhere, so she left."

A beat of silence hung in the air. The others all waited for some kind of wrap-up, such as if Ruby and Cinder had made plans for a follow-up date or if they'd hugged or kissed each other on the cheek or anything like that.

But Cinder remained silent, casting her gaze around at the three of them in turn.

"Well?"

Instantly, the others began applauding.

"Th-That's great!" Emerald cheered for her. "Nice going, Cinder!"

"Yeah, boss. That's really great," Mercury agreed.

/So,/ Neo signed a little more bravely. /When are you going to see her again?/

Cinder soaked up Emerald and Mercury's praise, but then gave Neo a mildly curious look.

"She said I may message her any time and that she would see me around."

The other three waited. Then:

"That's..." Emerald cleared her throat. "Um... that's it? That's all she said?"

"Doesn't really sound like a date to m- guh! The hell was that f-" Whatever stupid thing Mercury was muttering was cut off when his partner rammed her elbow into his gut.

Cinder sent the pair a glower, but Neo quickly gained her attention.

/Never mind him! It sounded like a really fun day. We're happy for you, Cinder./

That seemed to put their leader at ease. She gave a small, approving nod in Neo's direction.

"Now then, we'd best be getting ready for today's matches. I believe you three need to shower, since you haven't even changed clothes since yesterday."

"Yeah," Mercury grunted. "And whose fault is t- Ugh!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Emerald said dutifully as she crushed his foot. "We'll all get ready right away!"

With that, Cinder took out her scroll and began going through her planner.

Meanwhile, Emerald and Neo dragged Mercury over to the other side of the room, and another one of their huddles formed.

"So, that sounds like a good start," Emerald began.

"Buuut it doesn't sound like a date," Mercury finished.

/It was a date to Cinder,/ Neo clarified. /But it doesn't sound like it was one to that Ruby girl./

Emerald nodded. "We've gotta do something... Okay, listen up..."

They held a private, but brief discussion and agreed on a plan.

Once it was decided, the three of them hurried to get ready for the day.

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Cinder and her team sat through the last few matches of the tournament today. With the festivities soon drawing to a close, there weren't a lot of spectacles left.

By noontime, they found themselves back wandering the fairgrounds, though Cinder had few intentions of sticking around.

"I'll be heading back," she informed them. "I've got some things I'd like to do."

And without saying anything more on the matter, she made her way through the crowds back to the dorm room building.

Emerald waved her off with a smile, then turned back to the others. "Perfect! All right, you guys saw that girl right? Did either of you track her?"

Neo raised her hand. As the audience was being dismissed, she was heading toward the food stands.

"Good work." Emerald ruffled her teammate's hair. "Let's go get her."

So they set off through the crowds in search of Ruby Rose or any of her teammates, assuming they'd be together. Neo was the one who spotted their target.

/Cotton candy stand, 3'o clock./

Emerald and Mercury spotted her as well. She was sitting on one of the stools, holding onto a stick of pink cotton candy. Her blonde teammate was beside her, but the others were nowhere in sight.

"All right, that's good," Emerald said. "At least there's only two of them so we outnumber 'em."

/Dibs on the blonde again,/ Neo smirked.

"Good. You can have her," Emerald nodded. "Merc and I will talk to the twerp."

With the three of them in agreement, they set off. They tried to look natural as they approached the cotton candy stand.

"Gee, Merc," Emerald said. "I don't know. There are so many different flavors. Oh! Don't we know you?" Feigning surprise, Emerald got Ruby's attention right away. Her mouth was currently stuffed like a chipmunk's, but Ruby perked up instantly.

"Oh, hi!" She held up a finger and waited for the cotton candy to melt. As they waited, Emerald and Mercury took two stools to one side of her. At the same time, Neo was hopping up into a seat on Yang's other side.

"Oh, hey!" the blonde grinned. "You're Neo, right? I remember you! How's it going? You guys enjoying the Festival?"

Neo got to scribbling down her answers on a piece of notepad paper, and took all of her attention right from the start.

By this point, Ruby could talk again.

"Phew! Sorry about that. Anyways, hi! You guys are Cinder's teammates, right?"

"Bingo," Mercury nodded.

"Is Cinder with you guys?" Ruby peered around them, seeking their leader out.

Emerald and Mercury shared a quick, interested glance. /So she's clearly interested in Cinder.../

"No," Emerald smiled. "She went back to our room for now. But that's for the better, because we'd actually wanted to talk to you privately."

"Me?" Ruby blinked. "Uh sure. About what?"

"About Cinder," Emerald explained. "You see, she told us the two of you... went out, yesterday. Is that right?"

"Yeah!" Ruby beamed. "It was a lot of fun! She even won me a cute little wolf plushie! It took her a really long time, but she never gave up!"

Mercury snorted outright at the idea of Cinder needing to try a few dozen times to win a stuffed toy. Emerald kicked him in the shin, but was also trying not to laugh this time.

"Oh, really? That's... that's nice..."

"Uh-huh!" Ruby agreed. "Cinder's super fun!"

"Is she now?"

"First I've heard of it."

This time, Emerald spun around and nearly shoved him off the stool.

"Sorry about him," she smiled back to Ruby. "Anyway, we'd just wanted to ask you... well, how did you view yesterday?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"For example... when you went with Cinder yesterday, did you consider it... oh, say an outing, or a quick get-together, or... perhaps a date?"

She and Mercury leaned forward a bit eagerly as they waited for an answer. Ruby thought it over.

"Hm... Well I don't think I'd call it a date-date. That's not what it was, right?"

Emerald bit her lip.

"Well, actually. Cinder sort of thought of it that way..."

Ruby put down her cotton candy stick on the counter and her eyes went wide.

"R-Really? But why would someone as pretty and cool as Cinder want to date me?"

"That's what we would like to know," Mercury muttered. He promptly lost his breath as Emerald elbowed him sharply in the stomach while keeping up her smile at Ruby.

"Well, obviously she sees something in you," Emerald explained.

"Not sure what-" This time, she silenced him with only a glare. Mercury finally clammed up for good. Emerald shook her fist at him before turning back to Ruby.

"Anyway, that's how she thought of it. And we just weren't sure if you'd thought of it the same way. We just wanted you to know how Cinder feels." Emerald lowered her tone. "You see, believe it or not, she hasn't been able to hold onto a relationship all her life. But she really seems to like you, and we just want her to be happy. So if you don't think of her the same way, then maybe it'd be best to break things off early and spare her the heartache."

Ruby was silent, an indication that she was taking all of this seriously. She looked down at her cotton candy for a moment and was lost in thought. Then, she took in a breath and looked straight into Emerald's eyes.

"Thanks for telling me," she said. "I'll handle this as best I can!"

Emerald wanted to say more, just so she knew Ruby understood. But there was a fire in this girl's eye that put her at ease.

"Thanks for understanding."

Ruby gave her a nod, and Emerald could honestly say she felt comfortable leaving it at that.

"Well, we've gotta get going now," she said matter-of-factly. "It was good talking to you, um... Ruby."

"Yeah! Same here, uhh-?"

"Emerald," she said. "And this insensitive moron who can't keep his mouth shut is Mercury."

"Pleasure," he smirked. Emerald rolled her eyes, and Ruby laughed.

"Nice talking to you guys! I'll see you around!"

Emerald nodded again, then raised her voice.

"Neo, we're heading back."

She watched her smallest teammate look up, then quickly write something else down before handing it to the blonde girl, and then hop off her stool. She pranced her way over to her teammates, and they took off together.

"God, I swear," Emerald muttered. "Mercury, I can't take you anywhere! You're such a jerk!"

"Sorry. It's who I am. I can't help it," he snickered.

She growled at him before turning to Neo.

"Good work distracting the blonde one."

/Yang,/ Neo corrected her. /She's Ruby's older half-sister. She likes the beach, going to parties, and her birthday is-/

"Whoa, geez. You really did your research, didn't you?"

/I did. Oh, and I won't be able to hang around with you guys tomorrow afternoon./

"Oh? And why not?"

/I have a date~/

She twirled as she signed as much, giving a silent giggle.

Emerald's jaw dropped as Mercury whistled.

"Damn. Girl doesn't mess around."

"I'll say." Emerald wasn't sure if she was more impressed, envious, or scared of Neo sometimes.

They all headed back and discovered they hadn't been locked out of the room this evening, which was nice. They found Cinder on her scroll once again, typing away.

They all settled in for the evening. Mercury sat at the desk to read for a bit while Emerald did the same on her bed. Neo started rummaging through her drawers to find an outfit for her date tomorrow.

They'd all been expecting a quiet, normal evening to wrap up the day.

But to everyone's surprise, a knock sounded on the door. Puzzled, Emerald put down her book.

"I'll get it-"

But she saw that Cinder was already up and waved for her to stay put. Cinder felt that, as the leader of this team, she'd deal with any visitors. If there was any kind of issue or if a professor or figure of authority had come to see them, she'd be the one to address them.

But when she opened the door, she didn't find herself looking up at someone older than herself.

Just the opposite.

She very nearly gasped in shock when she found herself looking down at none other than Ruby Rose.

"G-Good afternoon!" Ruby piped. "E-Er, w-wait I guess it's technically evening right? Ahahha." Her face was flushed pink and her fingers twiddled nervously.

Cinder had always thought she was adorable, but this was too much. She staggered a step back, holding onto the door for support. Her three teammates peered eagerly out from behind her.

Ruby scratched the back of her head, but eventually stopped chuckling. She straightened up and let out a breath to try and calm down.

"A-Anyway, sorry for bugging you at this hour. It's just that... well, um... I..." She steeled herself, then looked straight up into Cinder's baffled eyes. "I'd wanted to ask you out, and I wanted to do it properly this time. S-So... Cinder, w-will you go out on a date with me?"

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A/N: Goodness gracious Cinder is going to die at this rate haha It's really fun writing her as a lovesick dork, and I think it's equally as fun writing Mercury as a smartass. I snickered every time I wrote another one of his stupid comments, one of which was provided by the patron.

And I love titling these chapters like the content of the story is some serious, animalistic hunt when it's actually just a bunch of idiots trying to figure out their feelings. But Ruby certainly snuck up on Cinder and ambushed her here, right? Right.

So, hopefully we can all assume where this is going to go, hm?