-Last Time-
Standing by the now open doorway was a man with plain brown hair and lightly tanned skin, wearing a dark purple outfit that looked like a mixture of a tuxedo and a medic's uniform. In his arms was a fancily wrapped package and on his back was a M41 Surface-to-Surface Rocket Medium Anti-Vehicle/Assault Weapon.
"Whoa, what happened in here?" The man asked with a raised brow as he looked over the destroyed room before suddenly smirking and saying in a gravelly voice. "Looks like someone had a lot of fun."
…
"But she getting to close to the target, we both saw her hesitate just now." Emerald said. It had been barely noticeable and it was only thanks to her many years as a thief that she noticed it, but the greenette had just managed to see the slight pause in Neo's movements.
"I know, which is why her act at the docks will be all too… realistic." Cinder said with a dark smirk.
-And Now-
"Man, I heard that things had been a bit crazy around here, but I never expected this." The purple man said as he fully entered the room. "I would have come here much sooner if I did, looks like a real blast."
"Excuse me, but just who are you and what are you doing here?" Wiess demanded as the purple dressed man walked into the destroyed training room.
"Oh, sorry how rude of me, my name is Frank Dufresne, but my friends call me Doc, and you may call me O'Malley." The now named Doc/O'Malley said, his expression flipping between a sheepish grin to a cocky smirk and back again as his voice changed before he held up the box in his arms. "And we're here to deliver this package to one Nora Valkyrie, I was told she was in this area."
"Ah, those must be the new clothes for Naruto that Nora ordered." Ren said before gesturing to the still catatonic girl beside him. "This is her, but as you can see she's a little out of it at the moment."
"Oh my, what happened to her?" Doc asked in concern as he watched the girl mutter inaudibly while snuggling with a confused but happy Naruto.
"Parenthood." Ren said bluntly.
"Ah, well then, give this to her when she's feeling a bit better," Doc said while handing the package to the slothful member of JNPR and heading back the way he came. "Now, as much as I'd love to stick around to chat, I have more deliveries to make. Have a nice day and enjoy the new bastard."
…
"…I should have realized he'd think that." Ren said with a facepalm.
"I'd ask about the fact he was acting like two different people, but that was actually the least weird thing to happen this month." Blake said dully, getting slow nods of agreement all around before she fast-walked to the exit. "I'm leaving before something else happens."
"Same here," Weiss muttered as she limped away with her sister's help and it wasn't long before everyone else went their own way as well. Shizune and Karin took Mito back to their room along with Jaune and Pyrrha, so the latter could get a checkup to check for any signs of rejection with her prosthetic finger.
Yang went off to work on rebuilding her motorcycle Bumblebee, which had been an unfortunate victim of Ruby's sugar high insanity.
And finally, Ruby, Penny, Nora, Ren, and Naruto all headed back to team RWBY's room, the former because that was where all of Penny's spare parts were being held for the time being and the latter because they really didn't have anywhere else to go.
Currently said child was playing around with the new clothes he'd gotten with Ren while Ruby carefully peeled away the artificial skin covering Penny's face, revealing the semi-soft pink polymer underneath.
"Oh geez, that's worse than I thought." Ruby muttered with a grimace, nudging some of the distorted rubber-like material carefully. "I'll have to remold it all. Did you already turn off your pain receptors Penny?"
"Of course Ruby, why do you ask?" The gynoid asked with a tilted head as the raven-redhead slipped on a pair of heat resistance gloves and started digging around inside her toolbox.
"Because I'll have to use this to fix your face." Ruby said while pulling out a low power blowtorch and igniting it. "Now could you go stationary please, I'd rather not accidentally cause more damage while I'm fixing you."
"Understood Ruby, entering stationary mode." Penny stated before she went completely immobile and a tiny hole opened in her throat. "Non-oral communication activated, can you hear me?"
"Nice and clear Penny, now let's get this over with." The weapon lover said, adjusting the blowtorch a bit before carefully brushing the flame against the fake muscle. As the rubbery substance slowly heated, it gradually softened and expanded, smoothing out the dents in the process. "Today was a complete disaster, wasn't it?"
"I wouldn't say that," Penny said, "Sure there were a few accidents, but we did learn several things in the process, such as what weapon types are incompatible for Naruto."
"That's true, but we also wrecked a part of Beacon, again," Ruby said, shivering slightly when she thought of the scolding she would no doubt be receiving soon from Glynda. "And even when Naruto was doing okay, I felt like there was something… off."
"How so?" Penny asked curiously.
"That's the thing, I'm not sure," Ruby said with a shrug as she turned off her blowtorch, having dealt with all the distortions. Setting the tool down, the raven-redhead peeled off her gloves before pressing her now bare hands against the pink polymer, causing it to compress back down to its normal shape. "It's just that he seemed unbalanced and kinda rigid for some reason."
"This was the first day, so perhaps that is just his inexperience that you were seeing." The gynoid said, only for Ruby to shake her head.
"I thought it might be that at first too, but then I saw him using Ember Sisters. Naruto was sloppy sure, but he seemed to be just fine with them until Yang had him do the moving target exercise." Ruby said as she moved her hands out of the way and checked her handiwork, smoothing out the odd bump and giving the material a few test prods to make sure it was still elastic.
Once she was satisfied, Ruby grabbed the artificial skin and started applying it back into place.
"Hmm, then it could have something to do with his faunus biology." Penny suggested, her voice reverting back to normal midsentence when Ruby finished what she was doing, and the robotic girl canceled stationary mode, her face now back to normal.
"Really, how?" Ruby asked curiously.
"Well his tails are extremely large for a child of his size and weight, so it would be incredibly likely that they would hinder his movement and/or balance." Penny stated, a file of all the information she had on Naruto popping into her vision.
"But Naruto's never had a problem with them before, I mean look at them." Ruby said, her gaze shifting over to the topic of their conversation as he held up several shirts and pants up with said tails. "Does that look like they're causing him any trouble?"
"Fair point, if anything they have been incredible beneficial to him." Penny conceded, getting what the cookie loving girl was saying.
"And he really comes up with creative ways to use them. Heck, I'm pretty sure he uses those things more than his own haaaaands…" Ruby trailed off when the metaphoric lightbulb lit up in her mind. "Of course, why didn't I see that earlier?!"
"See what?" Penny asked as Ruby zipped over to a desk with several sheets of paper, a pencil, and a ruler.
"Think about it Penny, Naruto uses his tails for almost everything he does, including defending himself." Ruby explained while making several careful lines on the paper. "He's so used to using them with whatever task he's doing that it's his natural reaction now. That's why he seemed so uncomfortable when we were teaching him, because he was going against his self-trained instincts."
"Oh, I get it now," Penny said, realization dawning on her as well. "We were so focused on what we wanted him to learn, that we never considered what he already knew and preferred to do."
"Precisely."
"…So what are you doing?" Penny asked curiously as she watched the weapon nerd draw.
"Weapon idea, can't talk, must focus." Ruby said curtly, her hands blurring across the parchment, drawing, erasing, and redrawing lines at a very rapid pace. Within minutes, those lines began to coalesce into an image of a segmented gauntlet-like device.
It was similar to Yang's Ember Celica but without any gripping mechanism inside, made of various segments that were interconnected by straps, and armed with a trio of serrated blades on the front end. Once she was done with this picture, Ruby set it to the side and started on another, only this one being much more complex with detailed depictions of the weapon's inner workings.
"Wow, this is amazing Ruby," Penny said, picking up the finished drawing. "I didn't know you could draw so well."
"Only when it comes to weapon schematics, anything else just comes out goofy looking." Ruby admitted with a shrug, her eyebrows furrowing as she put the final details for what appeared to be a retracting mechanism for the blades. "Now I don't like pulling a Weiss, but could you please stop distracting me."
"Oh right, sorry," The gynoid said sheepishly before leaving the raven-redhead to her work and going to the other side of the room, where Naruto and Ren were now playing chutes and ladders. Just as Penny was about to ask if she could join them though, she noticed Nora's scroll on the floor with the message indicator blinking.
Picking up the small device, she flicked it open and checked the messages curiously. "Excuse me Ren, Neo is wondering if Nora and Naruto are still up for spending the day at the arcade with her tomorrow."
"Ah, I almost forgot about that," Ren said while moving his piece a few spaces on the board. "You should tell her that they can't make it. I've seen Nora like this once before and it'll probably be a day or so before she snaps out of it."
"What? I want to play with Neo-chan though!" Naruto whined sadly.
"Well you can't go alone, so unless you can find someone else to take you then you're not going." Ren stated, getting Naruto to pout adorably.
However, before he could get to upset, Ruby glanced up from her work and said, "I'll go with him, I need to go buy some materials for this anyway." This statement caused the whiskered blonde to cheer and pounce on the short huntress-in-training with one of his iconic full-body tail hugs.
"Thank you Ruby-obachan! You're the best!" He said excitedly, snuggling against her chest as she smiled at him softly and patted his head gently after wiggling her arm free.
"It's no problem Naruto. Besides, what kind of aunt would I be if I didn't spoil you from time to time?" Ruby asked jokingly with a giggle that proved contagious for Naruto.
"Uh Ruby, don't you already have a mountain of random parts and such that you 'scavenged' during your sugar high?" Ren asked, cutting into the moment with a raised brow.
"Professor Goodwitch confiscated most of it afterwards and what little she left me was used to build the training cannon." Ruby said, getting the slothful teen to nod his head in understanding while Penny messaged Neo back.
*Ping* "She says that alright with her as long as you don't make her carry anything." The robotic girl said after the ice-cream themed girl responded. *Ping* "And she apparently knows a scrap shop that usually has some good stock for decent prices if you're interested."
"Oooh, that's sound great." Ruby said with a grin, since while scrap shops didn't have the quality guarantee of a proper metal or part distributor, their prices were generally much more reasonable, especially for someone with only a few months of allowance money to their name. Besides, since she did the smelting and constructing herself, the weapon girl was confident that she would be able to judge what would and wouldn't be worth buying. "Tell her that I'm game."
"Who's game for what now?" One Yang Xiao-Long asked as she and Zwei walked in the doorway, both covered from head to toe in grease.
"I'm taking Naruto to Vale tomorrow to hang out with Neo. You wanna join us?" Ruby asked back as Naruto let her go in favor of playing around with the small corgi, only for the busty blonde to shake her head.
"Nah, I still got a lot of work on my baby to do, sorry Rubes." Yang said while walking towards the bathroom but paused when she reached the door. "Oh, by the way, dad left for Patch about an hour ago. Turns out he forgot to call in a sub for his classes and he had to hurry back before he got into any more trouble."
"Yeah, that definitely sounds like dad alright." Ruby said with an overdramatic sigh before going back to her schematic making. "Since you're going to take a shower do you mind taking Naruto with you? He hasn't had one today and it's almost his bedtime."
"Alright, come on squirt, it's bath time." Yang said, scooping up both Naruto and Zwei up in her arms and carrying them into the bathroom with her.
"Speaking of bedtime, me and Nora are gonna call it a day." Ren said, glancing at the clock on the wall as he got the orangette up to her feet and started guiding her to their dorm across the hall.
"I think I'll also rest for a while as well, is it alright if I use your bed once again Ruby?" Penny asked, having spent the last few nights in team RWBY's dorm since her room was destroyed.
"Yeah, sure thing Penny." Ruby said with a wave of her hand, not looking away from her work. "Just try to stay on your side of the bed this time, Yang is starting to get unbearable with her teasing."
"Oh don't be like that Ruby, we all know how much you two love your snuggle time!" Yang's voice called out from the bathroom, causing the raven-redhead to groan with a slight blush spreading across her face. "And thanks for reminding me about that, I forgot to tell Dad about that. Better send him a message."
"Don't you dare!" Ruby screamed, barreling into the bathroom and tackling Yang in the shower just in time to stop the busty blonde from hitting the send button on her scroll. As they wrestled for the device, Naruto and Zwei glanced at each-other with confused looks before shrugging and jumping into the fray, thinking that the two sisters were playing some kind of game.
Twenty minutes later, Blake and a bandaged-up Weiss would arrive to the very peculiar sight of Naruto sitting on top of an exhausted Yang, Ruby, and Zwei in the middle of the bathtub, a victorious grin on his face and Yang's scroll in his hands.
"I'm too tired for this right now, I'm going to bed."
"Same here."
-The Next Day, Vale-
Neopolitan had a smirk on her lips as she sat on a bench at the Bullhead docks, waiting for Naruto and Ruby to arrive.
Her original plan had admittidly been a bit of a gamble since it relied on her, Nora, and Naruto 'accidentally' getting lost with the use of her semblance, thus resulting with them going to the shipyard instead of the arcade.
Then she learned that Ruby would be going in the energetic orangette's place and intended to do a bit of shopping for some weapon project of hers, she'd have to squeeze the exact details out of her while they were hanging out. This however, also ended up giving the ice-cream themed girl the perfect opportunity.
She did in fact know of a scrap shop in Vale that sold decent quality materials for a reasonable price and was a place she frequented to buy replacement parts for her umbrella whenever needed. And it just so happened that the fastest way to it from the arcade would be to cut straight through the pier, and as such the shipyard.
Now not only did she have an almost foolproof plan, but in the off case that something went awry with the trap then there would be little chance that she'd be linked to it since, as far as anyone else was concerned, it would be because Ruby changed their plans that they'd be there at all.
Not one to turn down a win-win situation like this being handed to her on a silver platter, Neo quickly got everything set up while notifying Cinder of the slight change in plans.
Snapping out of her thoughts as she saw the two people she was waiting for approaching, the tri-color haired girl offered a friendly smile.
"Neo-chan!" Naruto yelled excitedly, glomping the silent girl as soon as he got close.
"Hey Neo, it's good to see you again." Ruby said as she walked up at a more sedate pace. "How've you been doing?"
Neo rolled her eyes good-naturedly and made a so-so motion while ruffling Naruto's hair before motioning towards the raven-redhead in a questioning way.
"Not so lucky I'm afraid, you would not believe half the crazy stuff that's been going on recently." Ruby said with an exasperated smile while grabbing Naruto and setting him on her shoulders, thus missing the knowing smirk that briefly crossed Neo's lips. "To be honest, I'm really looking forward to just playing some games and hanging out."
[Then let's not delay anymore] Neo 'said' with her scroll before leading the pair out of the bullhead bay and into the open street. [The arcade is just down the street from here.] And sure enough, they arrived at a large building covered in neon signs and posters covering the walls, the most prominent being the name of the arcade itself, 'Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade'.
Dozens of people ranging from young children with their parents to teens hanging out with friends were constantly going in and out of the building, all of them laughing and talking with wide smiles.
"Wow! This place looks awesome!" Naruto said excitedly while bouncing around on Ruby's shoulders.
"This definitely beats the local arcade back home." Ruby said, not doing much better as she was practically vibrating in place from her own excitement.
[Then what are we waiting for? Let's get gaming.] Neo said with a wide Cheshire grin before the trio rushed inside.
The next few hours were a blur of loud noises, fun, and animated violence. Naruto had a blast, constantly jumping from one game to another, with either Ruby or Neo helping him to learn the controls. He did alright in most the games for a beginner, though it was soon discovered that when it came to luck-based games like item droppers or ticket spinners he was practically unstoppable.
Ruby ended up showing off her marksman skills by owning all the first person and simulation shooting games with ease. However, her building cockiness was swiftly crushed when she challenged both Naruto and Neo to D.D.R. (Dance Dance Revolution) and was handily defeated as the former could hit every key with ease thanks to his tails and the latter kept discreetly tripping her up with her semblance.
Neo on the other hand had been happy to just stay at the side and watch the two wear themselves out, but after seeing Naruto's amazing luck snuck him over to the slot machines where he won her several jackpots in a row.
Naruto and Ruby also ended up meeting and befreinding quite the interesting array of people as time passed.
There was an enthusiastic fellow with dyed green hair named Sean that hung out around the action games who stopped Naruto from playing a game called Happy Wheels (much to Ruby's relief). When they tried out laser-tag, they ended up getting caught up in an apparent feud match between two brothers Tommy and Danny who got way too into the game.
In a mining-simulator game they watched a blue-haired young man competing against a portly dwarf-like fellow with red hair over who could find the most diamonds.
At the adventure game section they ran into a pair of young men named Joseph and David who were dressed up like a orange cat and a squid respectively for some reason, while in the horror game section was a man with dyed pink hair who started insisting his name was Wilford Warfstache after putting on a fake pink mustache.
Finally, in the prize and snack hall a slightly chubby blonde scientist dressed in a messy lab coat had to keep dragging his apparent apprentice, a young woman with black hair and purple gunk covering her arms and eye, away from the grape slushy machine that she kept muttering was so pretty and singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' to.
Once the trio had all the fun there was to be had though, the trio gathered up all their winnings and exchanged them for prizes (or cash in Neo's case) before leaving and Neo started leading them to the 'scrap shop'.
"Oh my gosh, that was so much fun." Ruby said happily, a large tote bag slung over her shoulder stuffed full with prizes.
"Yeah, it was… *Yawn* great," Naruto said, rubbing his eyes tiredly while leaning against Neo for support. "Best day ever."
Seeing the boy's obvious drowsiness, Ruby frowned slightly before nudging Neo's shoulder to get her attention. "Are you sure this store isn't far? Naruto is pretty tuckered out."
[Don't worry, we'll be there in a little under five minutes, two if we cut through the main docks.] The ice-cream themed girl told her while pointing to said docks as they came into sight.
"Alright, if you say so." Ruby said with a nod, once again missing the wicked grin on Neo's face as she led her and Naruto towards the shipyard.
Neo could not believe how well this job was going for her right now. Not only was her plan to lure the target to the dock going off without a hitch, but her little trip to the arcade had ended up being quite… enriching for her. Now all that was left to do was get into position, wait for the signal, then put on the most convincing defeated performance she could.
However, as she walked down the stacks of storage containers, the silent girl's gaze was slowly drawn down to the boy leaning against her. As she stared at him, she felt an odd emotion flow through her, one she was unfamiliar with feeling… guilt.
She didn't understand why she felt it, she'd only known Naruto for a short while and had known from the beginning that this was going to be the most likely outcome. There was no way she was getting attached to him, even the thought of it was just ludicrous.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Neo turned her focused towards her surroundings. She couldn't afford to be distracted by such things right now, they were almost in position and she needed to keep an eye out for her sig-
*Thwip* *Squelch*
Neo stumbled back slightly as she felt something strike her in the waist, before gasping silently as she felt a sudden searing pain flood through her body. Reaching for the affected area by instinct, the ice-cream themed girl blinked in surprise as her hand clasped around an obsidian arrow that was firmly embedded into her lower torso on the opposite side that Naruto was leaning on.
Knowing only one person who used such a weapon, a sneer crossed her lips as she glared at the direction the arrow came, barely even registering as Ruby and Naruto called out her name in shock and worry.
'You fucking bitch,' She mouthed before collapsing.
-End Chapter-