Chapter 8: Storytime with Reuben

"Where to start? Ah, yes. I guess I can start by clearing up the main reason why I know Ruby's mother. I was a part of Team STRRQ. Nobody ever really knew about me though. As a fifth wheel in Team STRQ, it made me quite unwanted. Nobody else liked me because it gave the team an advantage. Nobody ever knew if it was Me or Raven they would fight against in 4 on 4 sparring classes. It was pretty funny when they expected Raven, but got me instead. I came in the third year of the team, and I was a third year Huntsman in training as well. My previous academy did not mesh with my political views and sense of wrong and right." Reuben explained.

"Which academy did you start out at? It is quite peculiar that you were even allowed to switch academies." Weiss questioned.

"I started in Atlas. That's a story for another time though." Reuben dismissed the question. I guess I can finally start. Me and your mother were quite close. She and I kinda had a thing for eachother, but Taiyang decided to take her from me. That's neither here nor there for this story."

"We decided to take on a duo mission. So, we both loaded up, me with Fast Lien and Early Retirement, her with Crimson Thorn, her beloved Sniper Rifle and Spear combination. To be quite honest, it was too un-balanced toward the tip to be a good weapon, but she somehow managed to be the most effective of the team at both pure offense, and supportive roles."

"We actually had a mission on Patch. However, we didn't think we would need Tai or Qrow, and Raven had been AWOL for three years at this point. It was a little side job of mine for Qrow to keep tabs on Raven, but I had since given up on it since she became nearly untrackable. We headed out to the man who posted the job. He informed us that Grimm attacks had become more frequent in the past few weeks and that it was not too many Grimm per attack, but they were more powerful than previous attacks."

"We began going north toward the highest concentration of Grimm to cull them first. It was originally quite straightforward, I provided supporting fire and she took the brunt of the attacks with Crimson Thorn. Then, one of the Grimm knocked her weapon out of her hands, but she did something I had never seen, or never noticed I guess. She instantly reclaimed her weapon as if it had never been knocked away. I was intrigued by this, I knew the legend of the Silver Eyed Warriors, but never had I heard that they could reclaim their weapons instantaneously"

"We continued fighting, but then some form of portal came out of nowhere. It enveloped us and took us to some corrupted form of the clearing we had been in. Grimm began to come in droves. They looked much more corrupt than those we had faced before. Beowolves had claws longer than the spear point on Crimson Thorn, and the Borbatusks were twice the size of those on Remnant. We had no idea what was in store for us…"

"The next thing we knew, I found a way to leave the corrupted land, but Summer died because I couldn't get one… damn… shot… One fucking bullet. Missed. It ended her life. I couldn't get a quick enough reload off, no dust batteries to charge my barrels with fire or ice for another projectile. Nothing was able to save her, not even her Silver Eye powers were enough to pierce through the Grimm. She had consumed too much Aura to attempt to even think about using them. She got stabbed in the side by a Beowulf, then eviscerated by a dozen other Grimm."

"The main thing I wanted to say through this story is that, I am sorry Ruby. I was the main reason why Summer died. I couldn't save her in time…" Reuben expounded on the subject.

Ruby began sobbing. "Why couldn't you save her… She was EVERYTHING to me!"

"I know your mother was your role model, but there was nothing I could do."

"Ruby, I want you to know. Your mother was the most valiant woman I have ever met. She cared for everyone as if they were her own children. She was the best leader I had ever seen, and funnily enough, you might have been Ruby Ravenwing instead of Ruby Rose. I was about two weeks too late and Tai took her in and then you came to be."

"Whoa whoa wait... So, you and Summer liked eachother that much?" Yang said quite surprised. "I always thought that Tai and Summer were happy with their relationship."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. They were happy, but she had always loved me more than Tai. We had decided to be an unofficial couple, but we never took things too seriously with our relationship. We knew that with the life of a Hunter we could never really have a stable relationship. I never have harbored any grudge with Tai over taking Summer away from me, but it did sting for awhile that the love of my life would never be mine." Reuben explained.

"So, this is why I chose you four girls. All four of your have hidden potential that is un-tapped. You are all fresh out of the academy, and I have sentimental connections to people that you either know, or are related to. In time I will tell the tales of my time at Atlas, and at Beacon. However, for now it is time for our second set of sparring matches."

"So, who first? Blake or Ruby?" Reuben asked.

"Well, Blake do you want to go against him? You might have a good shot at beating him!" Ruby asked the raven haired Faunus.

"Sure." Blake answered.

"Alright, Reuben Ravenwing versus Blake Belladonna!" Sebastian announced.

"Oh, wow I didn't realize you were listening in Sebastian. Can you count us down please?" Reuben questioned the artificial intelligence.

"Most certainly sir!" Sebastian replied enthusiastically.

"Alright Kitty, let's see your claws!"

"Oum damn it all. First Yang, now you? When will my torture ever stop?" Blake said with an exaggerated sigh.

"Three"

"I don't think your torture will ever be put to an end with blondie as your mate." Reuben retorted

"Two"

"I still don't understand how I ended up with her, but she's mine and I love her to death."

"One"

"Well, let's see that fire in your heart go to work!"

Reuben summoned up twin swords about 4 feet long to his sides to directly work against Blake's Gambol Shroud. He unsheathed them and adopted a twin backhanded stance.

"How interesting, a twin backhand user." Blake commented

"Swordsmanship is one of my favorite things, so many options to choose from." Reuben coming back with one of his many witty retorts.

Reuben did not make the first move this time, Blake took to the attack by throwing Gambol Shroud in its Kusarigama form attempting to throw him off his game. While not anticipated by him, he did manage to deflect the thrown blade before it hit him in the chest.

"You have an interesting weapon there Miss Belladonna. I'll have to examine it some time."

"Here! I'll give you an up close view." Blake showing her inner fire and feistyness.

"You get him Blakey! Show him who's the boss!" Yang shouted from the sidelines.

Blake charged but ended with a feint and a clone projection to try to catch him off guard, which was successful and Blake got a slash in on the upper portion of Reuben's right thigh.

"Ow. That was unexpected… I guess she doesn't have conscious use of her Aura Projection. That was most certainly her Semblance. I'm gonna need to be on my toes for this one."

Reuben came in for an helm splitting slash with his right sword but was countered by Blake's double sword defense. He used the opportunity to get a cross cut on her abdomen with his left sword. Then he made a hard stomp into her foot to keep her from falling over and switched grips on the left to a front stance, and brought the sword up into the defensive stance to flick the blades outward as he flipped backwards rendering the sword lock ineffective.

"Nice shots. But it'll take more than that for me to be taken down."

"Nothing I like more in a girl than a tough one!"

Reuben then changed semblances dissolving the swords from existence. A yellow dragon symbol appeared on his left hand as he smashed his fists together.

"Time to crank it up to eleven!" Reuben shouted

"Ah, so you're switching styles on me to confuse me, good idea on paper, but I'm the most adaptive of the four of us. Yang's fighting style has rarely bested me by the way." Blake retorted.

"Wow, she thinks I'm that stupid? Why would I ever fight with your girlfriend's style? Obviously you know it already." Reuben thought.

Reuben hopped toward Blake and made an overhead chopping kick at Blake, she countered again with both of her swords, pushing him away with a medium sized gap in between. Blake switched to her Pistol form firing off several pelting shots at Reuben with three of the bullets being taken by his aura and four others missing.

"Nice try, but here's the finisher!" Reuben growled.

Reuben held his hands together out in front of him in a cup shape, and his arms began glowing with a grey aura. Then a small orb of energy appeared inside his hands.

"What the hell-" Blake was cut off mid sentence as a large grey beam emanated from the palms of Reuben's hands and enveloped her.

As the beam dissipated everyone was shocked to see what transpired. "Blake! Are you ok?" Yang shouted. Ruby and Weiss were staring in disbelief of what just happened.

"Wow, I guess you guys are really as untrained as I thought you were. I didn't expect a reaction like this to a simple Aura Beam…" Reuben said as he ran his right hand through his crimson hair.

Blake began coughing as the smoke cleared "Aura what?!" she questioned.

"Aura Beam. You didn't know you could use your Aura for stuff like this? I'd expect Blake of all people to know how it works, she's used Offensive Aura techniques even!"

"What? I have?" Blake was puzzled.

"Yea. Sebastian, play Video 237, At timestamp 12 minutes and 56 seconds. Password Checkmate." Reuben commanded.

"Playing video Sir." Sebastian replied.

A holographic screen appeared recounting when Weiss seemingly powered up Blake and enabled her to throw "energy beams".

"That my dear is Offensive Aura Projection. That wasn't just Weiss giving you a power boost, that was her dilating time around you and a slight aura infusion, which then you somehow subconsciously used to project Aura slashes. I would never have guessed that you would have known, but at the same time you should have at least been somewhat perplexed that you were able to do that."

"I-I just thought that Weiss' glyph enabled me to do that. I didn't know that I would be able to perform it at will…" Blake stammered.

"Everyone with an unlocked Aura can project it out as an offensive force. It is simply a lost technique. Mostly because people used it so often that it overtaxed their bodies and they died. Almost like a magician using too much magical power and dying." Reuben explained.

"That was awesome! When can I learn to shoot laser blasts from my hands?!" Ruby finally spoke up in a very childish manner.

"In time Little Rose. But first, I need to figure out your combat potential, then we start at the basics of Aura Manipulation and Hand To Hand combat, for each of you. I don't care what weapon you use, you should be able to also excel at close quarters without your weapon. It might save your life one day."

"Aww… Ok…" Ruby was downcast at the answer.

"It's ok sis, you can let your sweetheart do the talking now!" Yang cheered her up.

"Yea! Let's do this!"

"First however, I need to get something from an old drunk friend of mine. I'll be back in a few." Reuben said as he walked out of the room into his quarters.

"This guy sure keeps some odd company. First a computer program, now a drunk? How intelligent is he?" Weiss said.

"Wait a minute… He fought us with similar combat styles, first me with his pistol boot thingies. Then Weiss with a Sabre. Blakey with twin swords, for a little while… Hold the Scroll. I think I know who he's getting that "something" from." Yang stated.

"Who?" the other three said in unison.

"Ruby, who else do we know that's drunk and uses a scythe?"

"Oh. My. Gosh. I'm gonna be beaten up by…"

"Hey Kid, Ice Princess, Shadow Cat, and Firecracker" The shadowy figure said as he emerged from the room.

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby shouted and leapt into the air.

"I'm not the one dishing out the pain though, I'm here to make sure that both of you don't get hurt. And, he's using Grey Talon since he was too lazy to make a scythe for himself."

"Right. With that out of the way, I'm sure you all know Qrow. He'll be helping us train as well. The more people to supervise you the better. And, he is much better at the actual weapons combat than I generally am. And, he'll be helping to train Ruby even further. Along with shedding light on her powers." Reuben explained.

"And with that the fight begins!" Qrow said.

AN: And the chapter ends! I hope you all liked Qrow's intro. My original plan was to not have him here, but later on. However, I love Qrow so much that I decided to put him here and as a semi-main character. This story is about Team RWBY growing into fully matured Huntresses, and I have two more stories planned. Along with two prequels to help flesh Reuben out as a character. However, this is my main focus at the moment. Please don't forget to Review, and if you would like to help edit the story for grammatical errors and improve the overall story, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM!

Stay Cool,

/u/KaosC57