AN: So, we're finally at the end of Volume 1. And after this chapter, I might be able to post more often because I'm on summer break. No promises though. If anything seems off, grammar, flow, or whatever story-wise, I will say that I wrote this while wearing sunglasses because one of my eyes is just about shot right now and I'm blaming that instead of anything else.

(Cont.)

Okay, on break, the note above was written about a month ago. Now, my eye is no longer dead, and hopefully, nothing is off. A quick warning though, I had a lot that I wanted to put into this chapter, and things might feel a bit squeezed in and/or rushed here. I promise to clean that up in the future.

Anything between apostrophes is a thought. Anything italicized is a phone call

Enjoy the chapter.

Ch. 17: A Night by the Sea

(Roughly Rose Focus)

Rose, Weiss, and Yang were walking through the streets of Vale, scanning the streets for their Faunus teammate. Each of the members of RWY was searching for Blake in their own way. Yang was calling out for her partner, Rose was buzzing through the alleys and down the side streets, before coming back to the group, and Weiss was just walking along saying nothing with an annoyed scowl on her face.

Taking a quick break to breathe, Rose got the attention of her partner.

The redhead walked over to the heiress and looked the slightly taller girl in the eyes.

"Weiss, I don't like doing this any more than you. Blake is acting weak running away."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I want her to come back. Having a three-member team is not something that I want to deal with."

Rose saw Yang turn around behind the heiress and saw that the blonde's eyes were going from lilac to pink to red.

'Oh, here we go.'

The temperature on the street began to increase behind Weiss. As soon as the heiress felt the heat on her back she immediately turned around, making eye contact with a red-eyed, burning Yang. The blonde nearly stomped toward the heiress, almost cracking the concrete with each step. Before Yang could attack the heiress, Rose decided to add in her commentary.

"Yang don't get too mad. You might make Snowflake melt. And that would be a mess."

Weiss turned a harsh shade of pink, and Yang's eyes went from red to a color a bit redder than pink, but she was still pretty warm. The angry mood was pretty much ruined at that. Rose was about to walk toward Yang when she was knocked over by something very hard and heavy.

She landed hard on the ground with said heavy object sitting on top of her. "Owwww."

"Hello!"

Rose shook off her pain enough to see a ginger-haired girl practically laying on top of her.

'How the hell is this girl this heavy?' Rose groaned in pain. "Could you please get off me?"

"Certainly!" The incredibly heavy girl jumped to her feet with far more ease than should be possible.

Rose rolled over before getting slowly to her feet, shaking off the pain. Once Rose had her bearings back, turned to face the new girl. After taking in the sight of her assailant; short orange hair, pink bow, light green dress, black pants with a green stripe, and boots. Rose's normally deep silver eyes hardened as she glared into the orange-haired girl's abnormally green eyes.

"What was that for?!"

"What do you mean?" The new girl seemed to have a perpetual smile on her face.

"Why'd you knock me over? The street isn't exactly soft you know."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you." The ginger's smile faltered just a bit, disrupting the formerly constant smile.

Yang took it upon herself to keep some form of peace, her hair finally put out.

"Okay, okay. We're all good."

Rose took a few deep breaths as Weiss joined the group. "Welcome, Weiss. Yang's right, we're all FRIENDS here." There was a bit of a forced tone in the last part of Rose's sentence.

A tone that the ginger girl apparently did not notice. She immediately got right in Rose's face. Rose looked over to her teammates, who had 'conveniently' disappeared as fast as the redhead could run.

'Dammit, Weiss! Dammit, Yang! I'll get you back for this.' Rose brought her focus back to the girl right in front of her. 'Wait…. they made up fast if they ditched me that quick.'

"Am I really your friend?" The ginger had a strangely serious expression on her face.

"Umm… I guess you could be?"

That statement went completely over the ginger's head, just like her arms. "SENSATIONAL! I'm Penny by the way."

"I'm Rose." As soon as the redhead stopped talking Penny nearly crushed Rose in a vice grip hug. 'And now I'm going to die from this hug. This is not how I wanted to go.'

Penny set Rose down and the redhead heaved to get her lungs working again.

"So, what now, friend Rose?"

Rose held up her gloved index finger for a moment as she rolled her shoulders and got herself back together.

"Well, since my team decided to ditch me, which is really annoying, I guess you can help me look for my teammate."

"Is she lost?"

"She left and we're here to bring her back." Rose's eyes drained of depth again.

"That's nice of you." Penny looked very impressed.

Rose shrugged with a frown on her face and muttered "I'm not bringing her back to be nice. She doesn't have a choice in the matter."

Penny didn't seem to notice Rose's sudden negative posture. The highly contrasting pair continued down the streets of Vale before somehow ending up at the docks around dusk.

(Slight time skip)

When they arrived, the pair got on top of a small building, and Rose saw Blake holding Roman Torchwick with a blade to his throat. Rose inwardly applauded her teammate's actions. 'Results over mercy, great job Blake. Now finish the job.'

Rose mentally facepalmed when Blake seemed to be making a short speech to the White Fang grunts around Torchwick until several Bullheads flew over the shipyard. The redhead watched as Blake was sent flying by a flare from Torchwick's cane and saw the monkey faunus from two days prior run to Blake's aid. Penny was right beside Rose as they observed the conflict below.

"Penny, I'm gonna warn you now, I get really violent, so don't look my way too much, okay?"

Penny nodded. Rose sighed before drawing her sword with her favorite red blade, jumped down from the building, rolling, then ran towards the various White Fang grunts. The first two grunts barely had time to blink before they were slashed by a glowing red blade. Seconds later, four pieces of faunus hit the ground. The next three weren't much luckier, but they didn't die…immediately. Rose repeated the brutal violence with various other grunts. She almost felt bad for killing a few of them, like a pig and a bull faunus.

'It's wrong to feel hungry when non-animal flesh is burning, but that kinda smells like breakfast.'

After a few more grunts were on the ground, missing a limb or two, or dead, Rose was confronted by an actual challenge. A very large faunus with bull horns came at her from behind with a battle axe. The redhead just barely enough time to dodge a downward swing. The faunus' second swing was parried by Rose's red blade, which cracked from the grunt's strength.

"Why don't they put you in front?" Rose swung again at the ax, purposefully breaking her sword on the other weapon, coating it in leftover red dust. Activating her semblance for just a moment, the redhead attached a lightning dust blade to Summer's Thorn's hilt and used the electric blade to ignite the bull's ax, before jumping back and smacking him across the face with the flat of the blade. This action prompted the White Fang member to drop his weapon and hit the ground. Rose finished her opponent with a hard stomp to the head. His body twitched a bit from the voltage of her sword.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose noticed Blake stop and stare for a brief second upon seeing her leader murder and maim many more White Fang grunts before her attention went back to her fight with Torchwick. The blonde monkey faunus flew by Rose before landing and running back to Blake's aid.

The redhead grinned for a few seconds until her progress forward was stopped by a very bright, very unexpected flare from Torchwick's cane.

Said flare sent Rose flying backward, straight into a metal container. Shaking off the pain, Rose saw a fuzzy image of Penny with swords moving around her and flying at grunts. When Rose's eyes came fully back online, she saw Penny firing some kind of laser at the bullheads above them, cutting two of them in half.

'What the -' Rose couldn't even finish her thought as she saw Penny use more swords to pull the third bullhead out of the air, sending it crashing into the ground, where it exploded. However, the ginger didn't have time to catch the fourth as it took off and sped away.

After the rest of the blurriness and the bullhead faded away, Rose looked back to where Penny was, but the strange girl had somehow vanished.

'Well, I really hope that she won't rat me out for killing all those people.'

Rose sheathed her sword, got to her feet, and ran over to where Blake and the monkey were recovering from their fight with Torchwick. When she arrived, the cat faunus gave her leader a bit of a scared look, as if she was expecting some form of punishment.

"Kitty-Kat… Yang, Weiss, and I have been looking for you all day and when I find you, you're just causing trouble."

Blake looked away. Rose reached out and turned the brunette's face to look her in the eye. "I'm so proud. I never thought I'd see you get into this kind of mess without me!"

The faunus' eyes widened. "You're really strange, Rose."

Rose winked at the cat faunus. "Thank you." The redhead turned to face Blake's accomplice. "Who are you?"

The blonde monkey looked at Rose with a nervous expression. "I'm Sun. Sun Wukong."

"Have you been the one with Blake this whole time?"

"Yeah. Is that a problem?"

"Nope. Just making sure that my teammate wasn't alone the whole weekend."

They were about to continue their conversation when they were interrupted by Yang and Weiss. The new arrivals were going to start speaking, but they were stopped when Rose turned to Yang and Weiss angrily.

"What the hell?! Why did you leave me with that girl earlier?"

Weiss and Yang looked a bit awkward. The blonde was the first to respond. "That girl couldn't have been that bad…. right?"

"Not the point, Yang!"

As Rose was about to turn and yell at Weiss, she noticed that Weiss was talking to Blake. The redhead turned to listen to the conversation between the faunus and heiress. So far, she had heard something about "twelve hours" and "not caring."

"Blake, I realize that I may have...said some things that I shouldn't have" the heiress paused before continuing. "From now on, I'm willing to be more open minded. But you have to promise me that when something is wrong, you'll let us help rather than just run away."

Rose saw Blake smile at the heiress. "Okay. I promise."

"Welcome back to the team, Blake. I'm impressed." Rose gave Blake a kinder-than-usual smile. Turning toward the heiress, Rose gave Weiss a look that said, 'I'm still mad at you.'

Yang was adding in her part when Rose's scroll buzzed. The redhead was the only person who felt it, so she missed what her teammate was saying. She pulled out the device and checked the message. It read: "Call this number."

'Vernal?' Rose internally raised an eyebrow.

"Rose? Are you ready to head back?" Yang gave Rose a curious look.

"Actually, you guys should just head back, I gotta make an important call and I want it kinda private." Rose waved the scroll in her hand.

"See you later!" Rose sped off leaving her usual puff of black feathers. After putting some distance between her and her team, Rose came to a stop in a stereotypical alleyway. Pulling up the number from the text, Rose pressed the call button. After a few rings, the redhead got an answer.

"Hello?"

"That you Vernal?"

"Rose." Vernal had a familiar edge to her voice that made Rose smile.

"What's wrong? Didja miss me?"

"Did you call to talk or to get to business?"

"I don't know. You asked me to call."

"Then you want to get to the point?"

"Vernal, why are you being like this? Why are you being so mean to me today?"

"I'm not being mean, Rose." Vernal's tone did not match up with her words. "I just want to keep to the point."

"What is the point then?"

"The chief wants to talk with you."

"What about?"

"I don't know. I'm just the messenger."

"Well, put her on then."

"No. You're coming here."

"What? Now?"

"Is there a better time?"

"I have to cover my tracks a bit before I just up and disappear."

"How long?"

"Tomorrow."

"Fine, tomorrow. I'll let your mother know."

(Next Day in the dorm, as RWBY was getting ready for class)

Rose was packing a backpack for her 'trip home.'

"Okay team. I'm going out for the day and possibly the week."

Weiss had a nearly panicked look on her face. "What about - "

"Snowflake, I know that I'm gonna miss some school, but it's almost our week off. So, I'm not worried and you shouldn't worry your pretty little head this, I can handle it." Rose turned toward the door. "Oh yeah. You're in charge too, Snowflake. Don't work Yang and Kitty-Kat too hard while I'm gone." The redhead gave a wave before disappearing in her usual way.

Rose headed toward the airship docks and boarded the nearest one, not caring where it was headed. As soon as the aircraft began moving, the redhead pulled out her scroll and checked the time.

Putting her scroll away, the redhead waited for the dark red portal that always preceded her mother. After a few minutes, the gateway opened behind Rose, startling her. From the swirling abyss, an arm reached out and yanked Rose through the dark gateway.

The next thing Rose knew, she found herself in the familiar space that was her mother's tent.

"Rose." The redhead turned around and was met with the sight of her mother, dressed for combat as always. Rose couldn't help but smile just a bit.

"Mom."

"Why did you miss our meeting the other night?"

'I hoped she wouldn't bring that up.'

"Ozpin showed me something that bothered me a lot."

"What was it?" Raven's voice held just the slightest bit of concern.

"It was some long, silver knife that belonged to that Summer Rose person you talk about now and then." Raven's face didn't change when she heard that news, but Rose could tell that something was troubling her mother. The dark-haired woman's red eyes changed ever so slightly whenever something jogged a certain memory.

"Mom, who is Summer Rose?"

Raven sat down and gestured for her daughter to do the same. "That, my Little Rose, is quite the story."

AN: There you go, Volume 1 is done. It took three years for me to get that much done. That's too long in my opinion, but you can't always get what you want. I hope I can post more over the summer. Anyway, as usual, any thoughts, ideas, comments, critiques, suggestions, or complaints are welcome. Also, I might make Volume II a new story, thoughts on that are especially appreciated. Thank you for reading, and I'm gonna try to fix my disastrous mental state and sleep schedule after a year at college.

(About 2 months later AN)

Looking back at what past me said, I can honestly tell you that all the health fixes have failed miserably. I promised more updates, but life comes first. And so, does inspiration and motivation. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and maybe found my 2 months later out of place. I also have a question, completely without context. A or B? Any answers to that question will decide a future part of the story. Thanks for reading, goodnight.