Ladybug's Misfortune

Blake saw as the Spider Drone came apart into rose petals. It seems it was another job well done… She thought about what was said earlier, of Adam would set up the bombs regardless of any crew members on the train. This wasn’t the first time he’s disregarded human life…

And yet, deep down, Blake knew better than to question Adam. After all, he knows what’s best for her and had been helping out since…

As Blake tried to shut down the bad memory inside her head, she noticed Adam approach her.

“Now with that out of the way, let’s…” Suddenly, the train began to jostle.

“NO! Not now!” Blake’s eyes shrunk as she looked at her hands. She began to tear up and sink to her knees.

“Blake! Hold on!” While Blake knew that Adam’s emotions were full of rage and spite, there was a small place of concern for her… or rather, what she was capable of. As Adam tried to reach for her, the train hit a rough patch of track that caused the links between carts to come apart. While Adam’s half came to a complete halt, Blake’s half just kept going. The first thing she tried to do was use Gambol Shroud as a means to rappel herself back to Adam, though there were even more shakings on the train that made her fall over and hit her head on one of the boxes. As she fell, everything around her was blank.

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“Are you even listening to me!?” Blake’s mind snapped back to the icy-eyed heiress yelling at her, face full of soot caused from Blake accidentally sneezing into a cloud of fire dust into her face. What didn’t help was that the force of the blast caused her bow to become undone, revealing the purple cat ears that she tried so desperately to hide. “To think my first day here would be ruined by a dumb animal!” No doubt about it, this was a Schnee through and through. Racist, elitist, the exact kind of person Adam warned her about.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” That’s when she heard a voice that, while squeaky, gave her some sort of hope. She noticed a girl with short, blackish red hair wearing a black dress and a red cape, though, what caused her to notice her was her eyes. Never before had Blake seen eyes that shined like silver. She saw Adam’s eyes, a similar icy blue to the Schnee’s for one side. The other side had a similarly gray iris… But this was different.

“And who are you supposed to be?” Schnee asked the girl. Blake saw the girl’s knees buckle… Despite this, she fixed her glare at the ice princess. “Aren’t you a little young to be attending Beacon?” She asked.

“And aren’t you supposed to not be a jerk? Huntresses are supposed to be paragons of virtue, right? So why would a bully like you want to attend this school?” The girl laid down a rather sound argument against the Schnee, who glared and gritted her teeth, unable to reply. Well, except for one thing:

“This isn’t over, mutt…” With a growl towards Blake, she left. Once she was far away, Blake began to hyperventilate. Though, it wasn’t long before she felt something that… felt weird.

That girl wrapped her arms around Blake. At first, Blake began to struggle, assuming she was about to be taken somewhere against her will, though the girl wasn’t squeezing tightly at all. She only gave enough strength to put some weight on her arms. It wasn’t too loose, where she could easily break away, but it wasn’t so tight that she wouldn’t breathe.

“Are you okay?” She asked Blake. Are you okay? … No one has ever asked that to her in a long time. Adam would ask the same sort of question here and there, but it’s mostly to gauge if she’s too hurt to continue their missions… Here? It’s different. This girl, who she never met before in her life, is asking how she’s feeling. Blake had no idea how to respond…

So, she just cried.

“Don’t worry… The big mean girl isn’t here now.” She kept a hold on Blake for a while before her cries stopped. She then let go and looked at the large lighthouse that served as the main hall of Beacon. “Think that’s where we’re meant to assemble… You want to come with me?” She asked.

“H-huh?” Blake had no idea how to respond… Her head bobbed up and down, almost on a swivel.

“Okay. Name’s Ruby, by the way!” Ruby said to her. Blake looked away and muttered.

“B-blake…” Her voice was barely a whisper, though Ruby understood it. She walked ahead of Blake, who couldn’t keep her eyes off the girl. Instantly, her gold eyes kept a constant fix on the red cape.

No. There was no way this girl genuinely cares about her. That has to be it… It’s what Adam said himself:

“Humans often try to score brownie points by being ‘sympathetic’ to Faunus… but this is a sham. Don’t trust any human who will lend a helping hand.” At that time, Blake couldn’t help but notice a black bird flying overhead. She would have dismissed it had it not been for the beady red eyes that seemed almost like they were looming over her…

And that’s when she remembered how she got to Beacon…

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She heard crowing when she came to. Blake woke up to see a black bird flying overhead, circling around like a vulture waiting for fresh meat. She got up as she noticed the train was at its station. She was a couple of carts behind, so she was able to see the police investigate the locomotive without them seeing her. A perfect chance to escape and meet back to Adam. Her mind already prepared for the discipline he’d give when she returns.

She followed his advice: “Stick to the woods. They can’t track you through Forever Fall.” And that’s exactly what she did… Though, as soon as she saw the black bird, she had the uncanny feeling like she was being watched. She paid no mind…

Until the bird swooped downward. Before she could even know what was going on, a man came from behind the very tree that the bird flew towards. While his outfit didn’t strike her as some sort of authority, a white and gray dress jacket with rolled up sleeves, black dress pants, and what looked to be a large cleaver that hasn’t been fully extended, she knew that this was someone Adam had warned her of: a Huntsman.

“Hmm… Didn’t expect a member of the White Fang to be some girl.” His gruff voice only invited fear in her. Her mind constantly struggling between fight and flight. “Come, I’m bringing you in.” Though, as he approached her, all she could think of was to get away as fast as possible. The first thing being to cripple her pursuer. Without any thinking, she took out Gambol Shroud and slashed across his chest. For a brief moment, she thought about how this was the first person she’d taken the life of. Before, Adam would do the dirty work while she stood by and watched it happen…

Though, the feeling of dread soon overwhelmed her as the man soon blurred with no cut visible on his chest. Once the man vanished from her sight, she snapped her head to the left and right. Once she saw the man in front of her, the next she saw was a fist to her face.

“Sorry, but you left me no choice…” He said as Blake lost consciousness yet again…

Ladybug’s Misfortune​

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[Author’s Note: So, if it isn’t obvious by now, this is a Semblance Swap fic in which Blake and Qrow’s Semblances are exchanged, Qrow having Shadow and Blake having Misfortune, and exploring just how the characters would be with their Semblances being completely different, and even how the plot changes as a result of Blake and Qrow’s swap.]