Honestly, this was just a really stupid one-shot that I wanted to do. I was bored and was listening to the RT Podcast #348 and it inspired me to write this. I honestly tried to make it as random as I possible could, but as you can see, I couldn't. Many of the lines were taken from Miles, Kerry, and Micheal themselves. Lindsay didn't say much, or what she did say wasn't fitting for Ruby as a character, so I decided to make a couple lines for her. If you didn't already, go watch the latest entry in the podcast. It's hilarious.
It was a fateful day in Beacon's library.
It had been the weekend. The halls were empty and among the variety of books, total and utter silence. Many students had already gotten their homework assignments done and class projects finished. Everyone save for four particular students.
As it was the weekend, most students either went out to spend time in town with their friends or stayed in their dorm rooms to sleep in. Unfortunately, these four didn't have that luxury.
As per usual, their assignments had piled up over the course of the week and they were forced to complete them that day in the library.
Ruby cringed every time she remembered Weiss scolding her to finish her assignments as soon as possible. The sympathetic expressions of her other teammates did little to ease her discomfort, especially when she gave in and her sister had giggled that she was "whipped".
Jaune felt guilty when Pyrrha had to take up her motherly tone with him. He knew how much she wanted to be treated as an equal rather than an authority figure, but his irresponsible tendencies caused her to put her foot down. He reluctantly agreed to her terms, but being the apologetic personality she is, Pyrrha promised she, Nora, and Ren would pick something up for him as a treat from Vale.
Sun, while being a visiting student from Haven, was not exempt from any work he was assigned despite being at Beacon for the Vytal Festival Tournament. He had been too busy monkeying around – pun intended – helping Team RWBY with their escapades that he lost track of time.
Neptune… well, he was just there. To be more accurate, he was supervising the three. Sage and Scarlet had nominated him to look after Sun to make sure he gets everything done. Seeing that Ruby and Jaune were there as well had been a surprise, but given that they were there for the same reasons, he decided to look after them as well. He needed time to start reading this book, so he didn't mind all that much.
Things were looking well too. Ruby looked like she was concentrating on the texts in front of her, as if to make sense of the jumble of words describing the history and uses of Dust. Jaune was writing a report on different battle techniques and well-known champions, his partner included, and how he could incorporate them into his own skills. Meanwhile, Sun was struggling to read an article about the history of Faunus-human relations over the past eighty years.
Yes, everything was well. That is, until a certain crimson haired girl spoke up. "Okay, we were talking about this earlier. Chocolate – is it candy? Yes or no?"
The three boys looked up quizzically. How such a thought managed to worm into the girl's head while researching Dust, none of them could say.
Neptune sighed. Weiss had warned him how often Ruby could go off topic, but he had no idea it could be that random. "Ruby, just get back to work. Weiss will really get on your case if you didn't finish because you wanted to talk about something as trivial as that."
"Okay, okay. Fine." Ruby threw up her arms in defeat and resumed writing her notes.
After a brief silence, Jaune spoke up. "It's definitely candy."
"It's totally candy." Sun added.
"That's what I'm saying!" Ruby exclaimed, finally getting someone to agree with her.
"It is absolutely not candy." Neptune said, eventually giving up trying to keep those three in line. "It's chocolate."
"Chocolate's like a sub-section of candy." Ruby claimed.
"It's like the phylum and the genus and the species and all that crap." Jaune collaborated.
"So you're applying biology to this conversation? It is definitely not candy."
"That's like saying it's not dessert." Sun scoffed.
Neptune raised his eyebrow as he looked at his partner. "So you're saying a chocolate cake is like a candy cake?"
"No, that's just cake. I'm saying candy is candy. There is totally chocolate candy."
"It's like how a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square." Ruby interjected.
"Here, let me check." Neptune grabbed the basket of Halloween candy that was on the center of the table the four were sitting around and was still being given out despite it been a couple days since the holiday. He pulled out a small wrapper containing two chocolate malt treats. "The Whoppers wrapper just says 'malted milk balls'. That's it."
Sun gagged. "Whoppers are gross."
"You take that back!" Ruby grabbed the monkey Faunus by the collar of his shirt, reducing the distance between their faces. This would've been a more romantic gesture had it not been for one: the fact that neither of them had an attraction towards each other and two: the hard, cold silver glare the younger girl was giving him. "Whoppers are delicious." The girl growled.
And thus, one of the greatest arguments of Remnant history began.
"On Halloween, you get candy and half of it is chocolate!"
"It's a Hershey's CHOCOLATE Bar. Not a CANDY bar."
At that point, Sun and Neptune were standing up to make a point. "Just like how M&Ms are CANDY coated chocolate!"
"Then what part is the candy?! There's no such thing as 'candy coated'. It's just candy!"
Remembering one of her social media sites had implemented a poll system, Ruby took out her scroll in the midst of the yelling. "We're gonna need to poll this right away!"
"I'm just trying to say, the cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster are a thousand times better than the breadsticks from Olive Garden!" Neptune cried.
"Thank you!" Sun nodded in agreement. "I'd go there just for the biscuits, considering I don't like seafood! Which really makes hanging out with Blake awkward…"
"What does the poll say, Ruby?!" Jaune implored from his side of the table.
"52% for cheddar biscuits!"
Jaune growled. None of them had ever seen the blond this passionate about such a topic. Looking in no direction in particular, he spoke.
"People out there. You go to Olive Garden. It's a classy place, you're a classy person."
"Objection!" Neptune pointed his finger towards Jaune. "Who are you talking to?!"
"Chill, man!" Sun said, pulling Neptune's hand down. "Let him have this!"
"Thank you for moderating," Jaune replied in a sassy manner.
"Doesn't matter, biscuits are gonna win anyway."
Jaune's face looked unamused, but nevertheless, he continued. "Look, it's a simple dish. We're always saying how things are much better on a stick, but how about the stick being edible itself? Cheddar biscuits are dense and crap! Breadsticks are fluffy, modest, and the perfect pre-meal meal. And it's NEVERENDING!"
"Biscuits are never-ending too! They're lighter and flakier than your breadsticks will ever be."
"So what you're saying is that you'd like a treat that just crumbles all around you and is difficult to eat."
"I don't want bread beef jerky because that's what breadsticks are!"
"Oh no you didn't…"
Standing up, both Sun and Jaune glared each other.
Sun began with his argument. "The breadstick is like the dime a dozen prostitutes,"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"
"You pull up, you flash some money, and it doesn't matter. They're all the same! The cheddar biscuits, that's exotic! That's like from Atlas,"
"What the heck, no!" Jaune protested. But despite it, Sun continued.
"From Mistral."
"They're not that exotic!"
"I'll bet that breadsticks…" Neptune started.
"Neptune! If you want to argue, you have to stand up!" Jaune yelled.
"I mean, cheddar sticks are pretty cool." Ruby squeaked.
"X-Ray!" Jaune yelled, putting on a pair of x-ray glasses.
"Vav!" Neptune countered as he pulled out a tea cup from seemingly nowhere.
"It's X-Ray, Vasilias!"
"I think you're wrong Arc, because it's Vav!"
"Boys, boys! I think we can all agree that Hilda's the best character."
"Shut it, Ruby!" They barked in unison.
"Yeah, Ruby. Because it's totally Mogar." Sun said with pride.
"Oh here we go."
"Can we all agree that there are more cookie varieties than chocolate chip?!" Ruby screamed.
"YES!" The others yelled in agreement.
In a seemingly random moment, Sun pulled open his shirt to expose his bare chest while simultaneously yelling out his arguments about their latest discussion.
"Sun, that would make much more sense IF YOU ACTUALLY KEPT YOUR SHIRT BUTTONED."
"Oh can it, Neptune!"
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!"
The four nervously glanced at the library entrance to see a few familiar partners of theirs.
The one who had demanded was Weiss of course, and she was accompanied by Pyrrha, Sage, and Scarlet. Aside from Weiss, the group looked dumbstruck by the passionate argument that occurred.
"Oh, W-Weiss." Ruby stuttered. "I-I can explain."
"No need." The heiress said icily. "From your incomplete homework, I can tell you haven't done anything productive in the past few hours."
"Past few…?" Ruby looked out the window. It had indeed been night time. And from the looks of it, the sun went down far too long ago. "Whoops."
"'Whoops' is right. When I heard from Blake and Yang that you haven't returned when the library was about to close, I thought you were finally getting your act together and finishing up all your work and then some. I had my hopes far too high."
Ruby nervously laughed and then saw how the boys were handling their predicament.
"Jaune? How much did you accomplish today?" Pyrrha asked. Despite her sincere expression and tone, Jaune was positive that she was asking a rhetorical question.
"Um, well, I finished some of my make-up work and some things for Monday." Jaune smiled sheepishly.
Pyrrha sighed, but she smiled nonetheless. "Well, you still had some progress. But you better finish everything tomorrow. Got it?"
"Y-Yes, ma'am."
"Good." Pyrrha handed him a brown paper bag, which Jaune quizzically stared at but accepted. "Nora, Ren, and I went to Red Lobster for dinner in town. You saved you some cheddar biscuits, at least."
"Oh… uh… great." The pair had walked off back to their dorm, but not without Jaune sending a sneer towards Sun and Neptune.
The two snickered, but then faced the other half of their team.
"You two sure took your time." Sage deadpanned.
"Yeah, well, things happened." Sun rubbed the back of his head.
"Understatement of the year."
"But hey, after seeing that," Neptune gestured to Jaune and his cheddar biscuits. "I'd say it was worth it."
Sun grinned and laughed. "Yeah. Well, I'm hungry. Want to get something?"
"Unfortunately for you two, the cafeteria's closed and no more air ships are going back to Vale." Scarlet stated.
"Aw man…"
"But, you two are lucky enough that we saved you something from dinner."
"Really?! Thanks a bunch, Scar! We owe you!"
"So what'd you get us?"
Sage handed them a brown bag that wafted a pleasant aroma. He somewhat struggled to keep the food aside during dinner, but Scarlet had found a way to keep him from eating it for the sake of their potentially hungry teammates.
However, when Sun and Neptune looked inside.
"Breadsticks. From Olive Garden."
"Typical."
And thus, half of Team SSSN went back to the visitor's dorm with two moping man-children.
Ruby glanced back at Weiss, who was also witnessing the others and their conversations.
She nervously smiled and attempted to sneak her way out, but a hand quickly grabbed the younger girl by the hood and pulled her back.
"You're not going anywhere, young lady. We're staying here until you finish everything."
Ruby sighed in defeat. "Aw, snickerdoodles."
Try to convince me that Ruby doesn't curse using cookie names. Go on. Try.