A Deathly Silence (RWBY/Drakengard 3)

[X] In a show of cross-Kingdom unity, your supervisor is apparently from the Atlas military. Uncle Qrow seems overly amused for some reason.

[X] Spend some time with Ruby. Tinker away and upgrade Ember Celica a bit with her, figure out how she's doing with designing her own weapons, sneak some cookies out of the cookie jar, stuff like that.
[X] Go shopping. Maybe buy something nice. Some higher-quality specialised ammo, maybe. Or a storybook or pun book to pass the time if you get bored.

"A whole month?" Ruby asked.

"Hopefully." Yang replied. "It'd be a pain if something happened and I had to come back early."

Her little sister made a sad expression. "But... I was finally gonna be able to start working on Crescent Rose! How am I supposed to show her off now?"

"You could try to just contact my scroll?" Yang asked. "I mean, reception outside the Kingdoms isn't the best, but it's usually there."

"Over the phone?" Ruby objected. "That's just not the same..."

With how much sad Ruby was looking like a kicked puppy, Yang had to resist the urge to pat her head. "Hey, it's only a month, and Uncle Qrow's constantly made a point at how hard it is to learn to fight with a scythe. You might not get your weapon in a state you can use until I get back anyway."

Ruby pouted. "...Maybe. But I'm finally going to Signal and you're not going to be there!"

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Yang replied. "In fact, you'll probably do great. I look forward to coming back to the stories about how Ruby rose to the top of her class."

Ruby blinked, then tried to hide a chuckle. "That's... That's terrible."

"Then why are you smiling?" Yang asked.

Before she could answer, Yang too the chance to use the brightened mode. "Hey, we still got a week before I leave. Want to tweak up Ember Celica a bit? Then we can try to steal cookies from the jar again."

"I think dad's caught onto the whole window thing, though." Ruby pointed out. "And he caught us last time you tried to distract him."

"Don't worry about it." Yang replied. "I've got a plan."

"Hm..." Ruby pondered, looking at the gauntlets. "I tried to adjust the recoil on it last time, didn't I? Was there any noticeable difference."

"Not really." Yang replied. "I mean, it felt the same stationary, at least. I haven't had time to test how it is on the move recently."

Ruby looked it over for a moment. "I was just wondering, one of the tweaks I made last time might have impacted the rate of fire, slightly. If I tried a similar change, I could maybe let you fire more often... If the recoil wasn't noticeably different, I should be able to make adjustments- Ah, but if I did that, the firing mechanism would get jammed more often, and fixing that would mean shuffling around plating, and if I did that it could end up too fragile and I'd need to tweak the power behind each shot to keep it from falling apart at point blank-"

"Remember to breath, Ruby." Yang teased. "Maybe save that for after the trip, then, so we an undo it if it's too much of a hassle."

Ruby nodded. "Uh huh. In that case, we should probably leave off the finisher mode-"

"The what now?" Yang asked.

"Oh, didn't I mention it earlier?" Ruby asked. "I was able to cut down on the size of the firing mechanism a while ago, and was thinking of what to do with the extra space in Ember Celica. I was thinking of tweaking the mechanism a bit more, making it a bit bigger but giving it more variety. You'd be able to load more dust into a single shot and cause a bigger reaction, but by putting that much energy into the shot, it's more unstable. Then I realised I could make that a feature, since if it's not going a long distance I could make it a close-range power option, and that means I could tweak the rate of fire and projectile power, tweak Ember Celica to repurpose those mechanisms towards focusing the reaction away from your fist when you fire and do more damage in a single blow when you load multiple dust rounds. But I'd need to adjust the size of the barrel to do that, and while I could make that a shifting function, I'd need to replace a lot of parts and it'd take a while to make sure it's fully functional after all those adjustments so-"

"Smaller words?" Yang asked.

Ruby stopped, and took a moment to remember to breath. "Big changes make big boom but closer." She explained.

"...You stole that joke from dad." Yang accused. "But I get the idea, I think. Too many changes to do now, but if you have time to pull it off I could expend a bunch of dust rounds at once to do a really strong attack?"

"Basically, yeah." Ruby replied.

Yang took a moment to try and process Ruby's longer explanation. "You said you could tweak it to focus the power so I don't get caught in the bigger blast, right? How much work would it be to do that with the smaller shots? A more focused form that lowers rate of fire and range in exchange for focusing the force behind the blast?"

Ruby took a moment to consider it. "I... Could do that. It wouldn't be a large boost in power, but it's still a little extra. I'll need the smaller screwdriver, though. Did you see where it went?"

Yang reached over towards it for a moment, before an idea occurred to her. Once it was in her hands, she tossed it to the side, near a pile of scrap metal.

"No idea where it is." She claimed. "Maybe you should ask dad for his spare."

Ruby, who had followed the screwdriver with a confused look, suddenly realised where Yang was going for this. "Oh! Yeah, I can do that."

"And I'll look for it too." Yang said. "Starting with the kitchen."

Ruby nodded. "I'll go find dad, then!"

With a smirk on her face, Yang wandered towards the cookie jar.

Over the years, Ruby and Yang had gone through great lengths to get those cookies when they weren't supposed to. They were kids, after all Why wouldn't they? But their father hadn't sat idle, but had gone through great effort to make it harder and harder.

It had become a game to them, at some point. One Yang refused to lose now.

As she walked into the kitchen, she completely ignored the obvious jar labelled "Cookies" on the bench. It was a trap. Qrow had acquired some sort of device on his travels that would trap your wrist until someone else pulled it out, and Yang had fallen for that enough times. The real cookie jar was hidden behind a shelf, though which one, Yang wasn't sure of. It varied.

Of course, there was an easy way to tell. Her father hadn't realised it yet, but Yang had recognised the pattern. There were three shelves with cupboards beneath them, and three keyhooks near the front door that were just too high for her to reach. The key unlocked the cupboard, and which keyhook it was on showed which was hiding the cookies.

It was always one to the left.

Quickly dragging over a chair and grabbing the key from the leftmost hook, Yang put the chair back as best she could, and moved to unlock the rightmost cupboard beneath the shelf.

There was a large bag of flour there. Yang pushed it aside, and then around a hidden corner, and felt hard glass.

There it was.

Dragging out the real cookie jar, Yang opened it and reached around inside it. After a moment of nothing, her hand touched a sticky note. Curious, she immediately pulled it out to read it.

I owe me one cookie. -Taiyang

...What?

Looking into the cookie jar this time, Yang confirmed her worst fears. There were no cookies. Her dad had eaten them all.

The monster.

"Why the Long face?" A voice asked. Turning in horror, Yang saw her father in the doorway, a smile on his face.

The walk through the shopping mall was a long one. It was a big place, after all, and Yang only had so many funds on her.

And she had to use most of it buying more cookies, too. That was the rule. If you get caught digging around in the cookie jar without permission, you had to buy more cookies and watch as her father ate them all. Truly, history had known no greater monster.

At least Ruby had kept her part in the plan hidden, so she would end up getting some of the punishment cookies.

Still, she had a lot more than usual on her. Even with the punishment cookies coming out of her own allowance, Yang's dad had given her enough money to buy something nice for the trip outside the Kingdoms. So as soon as she had the time, the girl had gone to see which weapons sellers had the best prices.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sign she didn't recognise. Turning to face it, Yang came face to face with a store which she hadn't seen before.

Huh. She had heard that the old pet shop owner had moved out of town, but she hadn't expected a new place to open up so soon. But hey, it sold some dust. Maybe it had something nice.



Approaching the place, Yang noted that the person manning the counter seemed to be a familiar looking old man.

"Do you run this place too?" She asked.

The old man shook his head. "Covering for a friend."

Yang nodded. "So, will you be manning the fast food place tonight as usual?"

"It's in the schedule." He noted. "You'll want the usual, then?"

"Might try the spicy chicken this time." She replied. "Something new."

The old man nodded, and Yang took a look around the store.

Ooh, those prices were cheap. She could get some slightly more explosive than usual Dust rounds, with more of a focus on kinetic force then flames, and see how that went with Ember Celica. Or pick ones more burny than hitty. She was good enough with controlling her Aura that she probably wouldn't set herself on fire.

As she looked around, however, Yang spotted a box in the corner, with a sign above it.

Experimental Dust Combinations?

As she approaches, Yang noted the much, much lower prices. She could get the good stuff and still try this experimental stuff. Though, there were a few warning labels...

Looking it over, Yang took a moment to decide what to buy.

[X] Experimental Round GB - Might expand and absorb other rounds to get stronger. Might also do nothing.
[X] Experimental Round JJ - Might split into multiple explosive rounds when it hits something. Might also explode in your face.
[X] Experimental Round MP - Untested
[X] Experimental Round ZF - Untested Either explodes in your face or shoots your friends. I'm not sure why we still sell this.
[X] These all seem like poor decisions. Buy that book on puns instead.

The week passes quickly, and before long, Yang finds herself ready to meet her group. The supervisor of the trip, a certain Miss Schnee, was waiting for Yang and her group at:

[X] An airship. They were going to travel in style, apparently.
[X] A boat. Apparently, certain shipments had been delayed, and Signal was also accepting a contract to post guards.
[X] At the gates of the Kingdom. Apparently, modes of transport other than foot are too expensive and a Hunter needs to get used to walking.