[1-A] A Daring Rescue

Never let it be said that Ruby Rose was a quitter. She'd come this far—which was more difficult than she'd expected, adults asked a lot of questions when fifteen-year-olds tried to rent rooms at inns by themselves—all to find adventure, so that was what she was going to do. Come danger, come heartbreak, come what will!

With that said... finding adventure was hard.

After growing up on stories about the big wide world and how dangerous it was, she was seriously disappointed. When she'd tried to explain her mission to a nice farmer a few days ago and offered to slay a dragon for him, he'd asked if the fox that kept getting into his chicken coop counted. She'd said no, but helped him anyway because that's just what heroes did. The helping, not the fox-hunting.

Frustrated, she'd started asking people if they knew anyone who needed help instead. That was how she'd gotten her newest lead. Apparently, in a tower up on this hill lived a warlock who was using his powers for evil. The man she'd talked to seemed to think so, anyway—he kept waving his arms and talking about repression and the violence inherent in the system. That sounded bad, so Ruby had offered to help.

Now that she was almost at the top of the hill, she was starting to wonder if she was maybe a little out of her depth. Dragons were one thing, they were just big stinky lizards, but she didn't know how to go about fighting a warlock.

Ruby scolded herself—she'd been complaining about the lack of adventure for weeks. Well, here it was, she just had to go out and experience it. No backing down, and no giving up! Jaw set, she marched on.

It wasn't long before she found the tower. And, well... it wasn't what she'd expected. She'd assumed it would be tall, impressive, and maybe have some mystic runes carved on the walls. The real thing wasn't that intimidating. More of a cottage, really. It slumped apologetically between a pair of massive oaks. Vines hung in lazy curtains from its thatched roof, sagging with the weight of bunches and bunches of purple grapes.

Ruby knocked twice on the worn wooden door, unsheathed the longsword on her back, and waited. She started wondering if there was anyone home—it did look pretty overgrown.

The door banged open, and a startled Ruby almost fell over. A woman stood in the doorway, and from the look on her face she was not happy about being disturbed. Her cheeks and nose were flushed a deep red, and wild blue eyes peered out from behind a curtain of disheveled white hair.

"Who are you?"

"Um, I'm Ruby."

The warlock flicked her hand dismissively. "Yes, yes. Why are you here?"

"Oh. Well, this farmer told me there was an evil warlock, and I'm trying to find work as an adventurer, so..." Ruby trailed off, wishing there had been a dragon up here instead—a nice, violent monster that wouldn't have talked to her before they fought.

"Really? You're going to fight him?"

"Uh..." Ruby had the feeling she was missing something important. "Who?"

The woman stared at her like she was an idiot. Ruby shrank into her cloak, her face hot with embarrassment. "So you're... um, not the warlock."

"Obviously."

"Oh. Oops."

A deeply uncomfortable silence descended, until Ruby managed to stammer, "Y-you don't happen to know which way his tower is, do you?" The woman's eye twitched.

"I suppose you'll have to do. Come in."

The inside of the cottage was quite homey, though there was a sour smell in the air that reminded Ruby of her uncle. The strange woman walked a few paces into the only room before spinning around and looking her over critically.

"You say you're an adventurer."

"Yep!"

"You don't look the part."

"Well, I'm kinda just starting..." Ruby toyed self-consciously with the hilt of her sword. It was a hand-me-down from her uncle. She liked to think of it as well-loved, but shabby was a somewhat more accurate description. Her clothes were probably dusty from the climb up, too.

"Your current objective is impossible."

"Huh?"

"Don't bother fighting the warlock. You won't win."

"I can fight!" Ruby insisted. "Just because I'm not super famous or anything—"

"You misunderstand. He isn't alone, he has connections and there's a small army in there with him. Fighting him is useless."

"But I—"

"What you can do," she continued, very pointedly, "is get in covertly and help me retrieve something from him."

"Uh, what? Did you leave a Frisbee on his roof or something?" The woman glared at her, and she blushed and hid in her hood. "So... he took something from you?"

"My daughter."

"He stole your kid?"

The woman's expression soured, and she snapped, "Will you help me, or not?"

In her mind's eye, a small child reached out from behind iron bars. Ruby's heart clenched, and she stood up as straight as she could. "Yeah!"

The strange lady couldn't get her out of the cottage fast enough. She stopped just long enough to thrust a knapsack full of supplies into her hands and give her some odd instructions on how to use them. Then she'd pushed her right out the door.

Outside, Ruby felt like she was finally getting her bearings. This made sense: she had her adventuring gear, she had her quest—there was even a maiden to save! She strode through the wilderness with a hand on her sword and a spring in her step.

Then she saw the tower.

It was built from perfectly cut blocks of white marble, and it jutted out from the treetops like a needle. There wasn't even a smudge of dirt to break the illusion of a column of pristine, unbroken snow rising into the sky. A window near the top glared sternly over its surroundings. This was not a building that had to command respect. It just had it, and there wasn't a thing the insects down below could do about it.

One insect in particular craned her neck to look at the lone window, trying not to be intimidated. It wasn't working, but Ruby gathered her courage and walked up to the tower's base. She rummaged in her knapsack. The magical items inside had seemed a lot more fearsome and powerful a minute ago.

Digging out a small packet of seeds, she opened it with her teeth and scattered its contents on the ground. A slim band of ivy poked through the grass and scaled the tower with a practiced ease Ruby wasn't too keen on trying to replicate.

After almost falling twice and scraping her hands raw, she reached the windowsill and pulled herself up until she was sitting half-in, half-out of the tower. She sat there for a moment, staring. There probably hadn't been enough space in the tower for a hallway that long. There definitely hadn't been space for rooms on either side of it. This was also the top floor of the building, where a set of ascending stairs really had no business being.

Well, there was supposed to be a warlock in here somewhere. Ruby pulled her other leg inside and landed in a crouch on the tiled floor. She produced a ball of string from the pack, tied one end to the ivy, and dropped the rest. It rolled down the hallway and turned right around a corner. She hurried to keep up, making sure to draw her sword in case of guards—which turned out to be a good idea.

After two lefts and a right, the ball of string led her through a set of wooden double doors and onto a wide-open stage ringed with chairs. The ceiling was mostly taken up by a massive skylight that was bigger around than the exterior of the tower by at least an order of magnitude. And, in the light of the shattered moon—hadn't it been mid-afternoon when she climbed in?—there stood a cluster of humanoid figures in gleaming white armor.

Ruby skidded to a stop, glancing between the sentries. It was obvious the moment she looked at them that they weren't human. The shapes of their helmets were all wrong, too tall and narrow, and at their joints she could see clusters of wires.

In eerie unison, all six raised their arms. Ruby blinked at them, wondering if they were trying to salute her, or...

A half-dozen shots rang out, and Ruby ducked behind a set of seats towards the outskirts of the room. Once she was sure all her limbs were still attached and functioning, she peered through a smoking hole in the back of one chair. The robots were still staring at her.

"Uh, hi!" she called out, then ducked behind the seats again. When she risked another look, there was a peephole for each eye.

"Can't we—eep!—talk about this?"

Bring a sword, I said. All the best adventurers have swords!

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ruby vaulted over the backs of the chairs, bounced into a somersault, then rolled to her feet and dashed towards the enemy. Something whizzed past her ear, and she decided she wanted a suit of armor, or maybe a shield.

Or a better weapon. For some reason, the sword just seemed wrong.

Once she reached the sentries, Ruby felt a lot more confident. Partly because she was getting used to the whole guns-for-arms thing, but mostly because now she could get to work removing them and the robots could finally stop shooting at her.

With a single stroke—well, four and a half, but no one was there to count—she hacked off a guard's helmeted head. It went down with a metallic groan.

Grinning, Ruby flipped over the shoulders of a second robot. The others shot it several times in the head and torso, and it collapsed in a heap. With two down and four to go, she felt like showing off.

In one smooth motion she swept one of the guards legs out from under it, skewering it with her sword as it fell. Without bothering to disengage, she heaved it off the ground and tossed it, sword and all, at the nearest sentry, laughing as they crashed into one another and toppled over in a mass of flailing limbs.

Now weaponless, she ducked under the arms of another robot and gave it a shove. It tripped over one of the broken ones. She kicked its helmet and it went still, twitching and sparking.

The last guard had gotten back up and was staring at her, holding out its gun-arm. She liked to think it was having regrets.

"Those are awesome!" She pointed at its weapon. The robot pointed back.

Ruby ducked out of the line of fire, then picked up the head of the first robot and lobbed it at the last. The helmet bounced off its arm, ruining its aim and sending it reeling. She charged forward to finish the job. It stepped forward to intercept her. She bounced painfully off its chest, grabbed it by the faceplate, and brought it down with her.

Its body hit the ground with a clang, and she cracked her head on its arm. They scuffled for a moment, before she eventually managed to dent its helmet and it finally stopped moving.

Ruby let out a huff. "Aw," she said miserably. "That was really cool 'till the end..."

Ah, well. She could think of it as practice for when she actually saved the princess—or whatever you called the daughter of a random woman in a forest. Probably 'miss,' or something.

After a quick stop to retrieve her sword—which slid free with a noise like nails on a chalkboard—Ruby trotted off to find the ball of thread. She did a double-take as she left the same way she'd come in and realized that this hallway wasn't familiar at all.

"But..." she protested weakly. The magic string was nowhere to be found.

With a sigh, she reached into her knapsack and retrieved an ornate silver mirror. By some miracle—or the fact that it was a magic item that would probably outlive Ruby by several centuries—it had survived the whole ordeal.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me the fairest of them all."

Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on!" she groaned. "The thread worked!"

Something huffed. Ruby glanced around, then looked back at the mirror. Her eyes narrowed.

"I know you can hear me."

The mirror opened one eye, and Ruby's reflection bent and distorted around it.

"Does it look like I'm hanging on a wall to you?" it asked, in a voice that reminded her of windchimes.

Ruby flushed. "You know what I meant!"

"Say it right, then."

"Fine! Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who's the fairest of them all?"

The other eye opened, and the magic mirror fixed her with a betrayed stare.

"You didn't rhyme," it said, scandalized.

"Oh, for the love of—fine! Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who's the fairest... um, in all the land?"

"Good enough, I suppose." Both eyes disappeared, and for a moment Ruby saw only her own reflection. It blurred away.

When the mirror came back into focus, Ruby was met with the image of none other than her old teacher, Professor Port. He was reclining on a couch with several cushions propping him upright. There was a glass of something amber-colored in his hand, and... and...

He was not wearing a shirt.

"Gah, why?!" She hurled the mirror away from herself and screwed up her face in a rictus of disgust and embarrassment.

"Young Miss Rose, what is the mat—" Port cried, but was interrupted when the mirror hit the floor. Unfortunately, it did not shatter.

"Did you just throw me?!" the mirror shouted indignantly, from where it lay face-down on the ground.

"I did not need to see that! I could've gone my entire life without seeing that and now I can't unsee it, and it's all your fault!"

"You asked to speak to the fairest of them all, did you not? And in all the land, I have never seen nor heard tell of a more magnificent specimen of the human form!"

"Ew! What is wrong with you?!"

"That finest and most firm of physiques!"

"Please, stop!"

"Positively brimming with vitality, vigor, and voluptuous manliness!"

"No~!"

"And that most magnificent mustache, the likes of which I have never—"

"Just show me the girl who lives in this tower!" Ruby shouted, at the top of her lungs.

The mirror sighed longingly. "As you wish. I suppose there's no accounting for taste." Ruby shuddered. Carefully, as if she was sneaking up on a sleeping dragon, she peeled the ancient artifact off the floor. Its surface was, thankfully, blank.

"You need to say the words," it pointed out.

"What, again?"

"It's tradition."

"Ugh. Mirror mirror, in my hand, I want to talk to the girl in this tower... and?" The mirror was distinctly unimpressed, but her reflection dissolved into a blur of color and soon she was looking into a massive room at a bed that could probably have fit her entire extended family.

"Uh, hello?" She leaned in to see better. Her nose bumped against the mirror, and it made an annoyed grunting noise. Something moved near the edge of her field of view, and a pair of very intimidating blue eyes stared back at her. Ruby gulped audibly.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my mirror?!" the girl demanded, folding her arms over her chest. She was definitely not a baby. She was probably older than Ruby, actually.

"Um..." Without really meaning to, Ruby found herself staring—not at the girl per se, more at the faint pink line that ran across her left eye. Another half-inch and we'd be in a totally different genre right about now.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh! I'm Ruby!"

"And? What are you doing here?!"

Ruby was starting to notice a family resemblance. That, or she needed to introduce herself as 'Ruby Rose, adventurer extraordinaire' from now on. Short, sweet, rolls right off the tongue—and the scary girl had totally asked her a question, hadn't she?

"I'm here to rescue you!" she announced proudly.

Her damsel-in-very-little-apparent-distress raised an eyebrow. Ruby tried not to quail.

"How exactly do you plan on doing that?"

"Well, I already beat up some robot guards, so I think I'm off to a pretty good start!" Ruby paused, frowning. "I mean, I just need directions because I may have sorta-kinda lost the magic thread that was supposed to lead me to your room... it's your house, right?"

"Technically," the girl allowed. "But I have to ask you to leave."

"What? But I'm on a quest!"

"You're breaking and entering."

"Your mom told me to!" That hadn't been Ruby's best comeback ever, but she thought the exaggerated eye roll was a little much.

"My mother has no right to complain," the not-princess said, making a show of inspecting her nails.

"Um, what?"

"Ugh, that's not the point."

"What is the point, then?" Ruby demanded. "Do you want to leave, or not?"

That caught the girl off-guard, if the look on her face was any indication. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, before she said, "Well, yes..."

"So, how do I get to your room?"

"That's not the point—"

"Yes, it is. Left or right?" Ruby brandished the mirror like a banner, showing off the wide hallway just outside of the opera house.

"Three lefts, two rights, and down a flight of stairs."

Ruby blinked.

"I spend a lot of time in there, okay?" the girl snapped, a bit defensively.

"Well... cool! Be right there?"

The mirror's image began to dim, before a thought occured to her.

"Wait!" she cried, grabbing the magic item and pressing her nose against the glass. The mirror shuddered.

"What now?"

"I forgot to ask what your name was!"

The girl's scarred eye twitched. "It's Weiss. Now, hurry up before the Paladin finds you."

The connection went dead.

"Wait, before the what finds me?"

"The Paladin," the mirror answered helpfully. "If you run into it, try not to drop me again. I'd hate to get blood on my frame."

"Ugh," Ruby groaned, and stuffed the magic item back into her bag. It made a muffled, indignant noise, then went silent.

"Stupid smart-alec mirrors..." she muttered, unsheathing her sword and stomping down the hallway.

"Okay, two lefts and three rights. Or... Three rights and two lefts?" Ruby spun in a small circle, heart sinking.

"Three lefts, two rights, and down the stairs. Ingrate."

"Thank you," Ruby mumbled, face burning.

Ruby stopped at the bottom of the staircase. She couldn't have said why, exactly. Maybe she heard something, or maybe it was adventurer's intuition that made the hairs prickle at the back of her neck.

Regardless, the second she reached the final landing of the stairwell she stopped, crouched down, and peered around the corner. And it was a good thing she did, because the princess—or whatever, she acted kind of snooty and in Ruby's humble opinion that was enough to qualify—was not unguarded.

Standing motionless in front of a plain wooden door was a gigantic suit of shining white armor. In his right hand, he held a broadsword that was taller than Ruby. And she drank milk!

Even as she leaned forward to get a better look, his full-face helmet turned toward her in complete and utter silence. He didn't speak. The only sound as he marched toward her was the clanging of his armored feet on the floor. Ruby scrambled to draw her sword. The lesser blade—and it was a lesser blade, as much as she loved it—slid free with a metallic rasp. The knight cocked his head, and part of her brain (the part that wasn't busy figuring out how to beat someone in full plate that weighed at least ten of her) noticed it made him look a bit like Zwei.

"Nice... Paladin?"

His sword cleaved the air above her head with a low hiss. Ruby rolled under it. When the blade hit the wall behind her, it bit deep into the stone.

"Hah!" Ruby cheered, and lunged. Her sword skated off his breastplate without leaving a scratch, and he tugged his own weapon free easily.

"What's going on out there?" demanded a voice from behind the door.

"Kinda busy!" Ruby wailed, diving desperately to the side.

"Stop moving!" whined the mirror from inside her pack. "I'm getting nauseous!"

The knight swung again, and Ruby tucked into a somersault. She managed to go between his legs, and she didn't feel even a little bad about slashing upward as she did so.

There was a whisper of air behind her. Ruby pitched herself forward and landed painfully on her elbows. The weight on her back slid sideways with a clatter and a series of thumps. When she sprang to her feet again, she felt far lighter—the pack had been cut right off her back.

"You dropped me!" the mirror squealed. "Again!"

"Shut up and let me think!" Leaning to the left, she narrowly avoided another strike from the knight. She was starting to pick up a pattern, sort of. He didn't feint, there was too much force behind his strikes for that, but he wasn't slow like she'd first thought. And he was ridiculously strong.

"Open the door!" Weiss called out.

"I'm try—" The knight's sword passed within inches of her face, slicing off a few strands of hair.

If I were Yang, she thought grumpily, That would mean I win.

Since she wasn't her sister, Ruby couldn't do much to the knight except backpedal as quickly as she could without tripping over her own feet. This wasn't working, she hadn't even scratched him and she was getting tired. Casting about desperately for an idea, her eyes locked on the door behind him.

The knight charged. Tensing, Ruby waited until she could see the sword cutting sideways towards her face before she leaped. Her foot came down on the flat of the blade, and she pushed off as hard as she could. The weapon dipped, though not by much—how strong was this guy?!—and she ended up wildly off-balance and on a collision course with his helmet.

At the last minute she reached out, grabbed one of his shoulder pauldrons, and flipped herself over his head. She landed behind him and kicked him solidly in the back, using his armor as a springboard to lunge for the door. Her sword cut through the lock in one stroke.

"Little help!" she shouted, as her own momentum bounced her painfully off the wall.

The door slammed open with a loud crack, and Weiss rushed out brandishing a thin rapier. She might have paled, though it was hard to tell. "What the—what did I tell you about not letting the Paladin find you?!"

"I didn't! He was guarding your room!"

Weiss edged backward until she and Ruby were shoulder to shoulder. "Oh. Well... what are you waiting for, then?"

Ruby glanced between her and the Paladin. "What am I waiting for?" she asked, trying and failing to chuckle casually. "What are you waiting for?"

"You're the adventurer."

"But you know this thing's weaknesses, don't you?"

"Of course I do. It doesn't have any!"

"Well... It's your house!"

"That doesn't even—"

Both of them were forced to dodge when the Paladin slashed at their throats. Ruby went left and ducked under the blade. Weiss flipped backwards instead, landing poised on both feet and brandishing her rapier.

"Go for the joints," Ruby suggested—her thinner sword had a better shot at slipping between the plates of armor.

"There's no point."

"What?"

"The armor—" Weiss broke off mid-sentence to duck another wild swing. "There's no one inside."

"What?!"

Ruby turned to stare at Weiss. Her attention only wavered for an instant, but when she looked back around the Paladin's sword was on a collision course with her face. She did the only thing she could think of—she parried.

The Paladin's sword slammed into her own with the force of a charging rhinoceros, and the hilt flew out of her stinging palm. It bought her enough time to dash under his arm and out of range, but her blade was dented so badly it was practically in two pieces.

Now unarmed, her eyes flicked between the towering steel automaton bearing down on her, and the tiny girl with the even tinier sword that was now their only offensive option.

Instead of going after Weiss, now the only threat (in theory, her rapier probably wouldn't hurt him much), the Paladin strode towards where Ruby stood. She backed away, glanced over her shoulder, and grinned.

"Hey, tin can!" she shouted, and dashed down the corridor. The Paladin followed.

"What are you doing?" Weiss called out.

"Improvising!" Ruby skidded to a halt. The corridor came to a dead end at a small lookout spot, where a pair of padded benches had been laid out before a floor-to-ceiling window. Not only that, but the hallway narrowed dramatically as it ended.

When Ruby heard the sound of the Paladin's sword coming toward her, she spun around and laughed. It caught on the stone ceiling with a nasty screech. He tugged it back down and kept swinging.

Ruby dodged out of the way, and then Weiss was there, too. It didn't matter much—numbers weren't super useful when neither of you could hurt the other guy—but it made her feel more confident.

"This better not be your whole plan," Weiss snapped, darting in to slash at the knight's breastplate. He didn't seem to notice.

Suddenly deciding that showing was way more fun than telling (and proving to anyone who cared that she was definitely related to her sister), Ruby put a hand to her mouth and whistled.

The Paladin charged toward her, and for the second time in one fight she ducked and slid between his legs. This time she didn't try to swing at his unmentionables. Instead, she stood up and pushed.

Right away, she realized something was wrong. Namely, he was heavy. He staggered and lurched, but she couldn't tip him over on her own.

Thankfully, Weiss realized what she was trying to do in time to help. The Paladin tipped slowly, like a feather had just fallen on a perfect balance. Then he pitched forward and smashed through the floor-to-ceiling window.

He didn't make a sound as he fell. When he hit the ground, though... it was sort of like someone had dropped a cupboard full of pots. Then, silence.

"That... Ruby panted. "Was... Awesome!"

She tried to leap into the air and fistpump. Instead she ended up slumped on the ground, wheezing. There had been too many flips in that fight. Way, way too many.

"We should go," Weiss decided.

"But I'm tired!"

"I don't think that killed it."

"Okay, let's go!" Ruby popped to her feet and marched down the hallway, then stopped when she realized Weiss wasn't following.

"I wanted to say..." She picked up her sword and faced the wall. "...Thank you."

This time, Ruby did fistpump.

Okay! So this monster is finally... finally up. For context, I've been working on it on and off for almost two years. When I started this hot mess I still went by 'she.' IT'S BEEN A WHILE.

I should probably explain. This is a series of six two-shots (12 chapters total), with every possible combination of two characters featured once. None were written to be shippy, but y'know. If you feel like reading 'em that way there's nothing stopping you.

They're also... let's call them pseudo-crosses. Meaning they're flavored with other things, but they don't carry over characters or specific settings. More like references, really. How much flavor varies, but I promise you'll never need to know about the cross beforehand. For example, this first pair of chapters is a reference to the Fairy Tale genre as a whole. (There is one exception, where the cross didn't make sense so I dropped it.)

If you want to try and guess what's being referenced in each one, go ahead! I'll give it away by the end of the second part, but I don't want to spoil it in the very beginning.

I'm mostly done with the whole thing, all I need to do is some polishing, so I'll be putting up two a week, one each on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Until tomorrow!