Cowboys of Remnant: Jaune and Ruby Make a Baby
Weiss was certain that Ruby would forgive her for eavesdropping. After all, a good teammate should check in on their leader's status frequently, especially around ruggedly handsome blonds with strong hands and kind eyes and- Weiss stifled that line of thought with prejudice.
Besides, it's not as though no one else snooped. Those other snoopers snooped all the time, and had been snooping well before she arrived on the scene! She was, of course, referring to Pyrrha and Yang, currently crouched gauchely outside the forge booked by Jaune and Ruby. Weiss, like a woman of wealth and taste, had instead planted a discreet bug inside the room well before anyone else got there. She herself waited down the hall and around the corner, just in case she heard something that would require her to intervene.
Like whatever she was hearing right now.
"It's too big, Jaune! It won't fit!"
"We just need a little lube and it'll slide in just fine."
"It's not meant to open like that! You're gonna break it! Try a lower angle, that should give it more room- ah! Not that low! Careful!"
Jaune's grunt echoed from the speaker.
"Sorry, sorry. It's just a bit awkward, but it should fit once we find the right- ahh! See? Like butter," he replied.
"Oh wow, that's really snug."
"Yeah, gonna need to ream it out to make sure it fits better, I reckon."
Weiss couldn't believe what she was hearing. To think that sweet, innocent Ruby was engaging in such... depravity. It filled her with envy lust shock. Yes, definitely shock and nothing else. Enough was enough! She had to stop this!
The Heiress turned the corner, striding forward confidently. She paid no heed to the two degenerates at the door, sweeping past them and slamming the heavy metal door open.
"Stop your depravity this instant!" She cried.
The scene that met her was, in many ways, the polar opposite of what she had expected. Rather than a state of undress, Jaune and Ruby were instead clad head to toe in protective gear, obscuring their forms behind heavy aprons, gloves, and goggles. Between them, placed on a cooling stand, was Crocea Mors, fresh from the forge.
"Uh, hi Weiss," Ruby said, her voice muffled through the respirator covering her face. "I know I get a little too into my work sometimes but you don't need to call it depraved, you know. That's just hurtful."
"Miss Schnee." Jaune chimed in, voice filled with reproach. "If we hadn't already finished our work, you could have cause quite the accident. Forges are dangerous."
"You- But- What?"
Pyrrha cleared her throat, poking her head around the edge of the doorjamb. "It seems to me that Weiss believed the two of you were engaging in some sort of illicit activity." The redhead gave Weiss a pointed look. "And then took it upon herself to intervene."
"Not cool, Weiss." Yang added, leaning into view.
Weiss's face rapidly reddened with fury. "Well, I at least I wasn't crouching outside the door trying to eavesdrop like a voyeur! Have you two no shame!?"
Pyrrha blushed and stammered, "I-I was merely looking out for my partner!"
Yang, without a hint of shame, concurred. "And I was keeping an eye on my sister!"
"And I was doing the same for my partner and team leader!" Weiss retorted.
"And I don't need my sister and partner watching over me all the time!" Ruby interjected, anger seeping into her voice as she pulled her face protection off. "Seriously! We were just making a baby!"
There was silence as everyone turned to stare at her. A moment later, Ruby realized what she'd said and squeaked, attemping to, poorly, cover her hands with her recently removed mask.
Yang's grin could only be described as shit-eating. "Damn Cowboy, didn't think you had it in you to get my sis-" Her teasing was cut of as Pyrrha pulled her into a chokehold and dragged her around the corner. Judging from the look on the myrmidon's face, it would be a poor decision to interfere.
"What Ms. Rose meant," Jaune interrupted desperately. "Is that we were givin' Crocea Mors an overhaul! Nothin' untoward! Please, I really hope y'all wouldn't think of me as the kind of person who would take advantage of a friend like that..."
The Schnee Heiress's face fell as shame overwhelmed her. Jaune had been nothing but polite and kind to her and her new friends and she'd accused him of fooling around with her team leader. In retrospect, the conversation she'd overheard would have applied just as well to two individuals in the midst of precision weaponeering.
Weiss bowed. "Jaune, Ruby, I apologize. I shouldn't have jumped to such unseemly conclusions. Please forgive me."
"I- well," the Cowboy stuttered. "It's al-alright Miss Schnee. I know you were just lookin' out for us."
"Yeah!" Ruby agreed with cheer, her earlier ire and embarrassment all but forgotten. "It's nice to know that my bestie cares!"
The Heiress's eyelid twitched, but she took a deep breath and let it go, before searching for a way to change the subject. Her eyes alighted upon the cooling form of Crocea Mors and she had her out. "So, what exactly did you do to Jaune's sword?"
The little red reaper was suddenly vibrating with excitement. "Oh oh oh! It's the coolest thing! Jaune, can I show her? Please? Pretty please?"
Jaune chuckled, "Of course, Miss Rose. You did most of the work, after all."
"Yay!" Ruby cheered and seized Crocea Mors from the cooling stand. "Jaune wouldn't let me include all the upgrades I wanted to-"
"I much prefer simplicity, Miss Rose."
The redhead snorted, "You're just boring. At least the shifting mechanism is pretty neat." She lifted the blade up and gave it a few experimental swings, showing off the changes.
Initially a fairly straightforward hand-and-a-half sword, Crocea Mors had undergone some extensive changes to its form. The blade itself was split down the middle, giving it a prong shape, to accommodate the barrel of the lever action rifle that had been integrated with the body of the sword. The receiver of the gun was built-into the hilt of the blade, although the trigger and cocking lever weren't exactly positioned for easy usage. Weiss's unasked question was answered as Ruby engaged the mechashift, rotating the prongs of the blade ninety degrees while retracting them, flipping the crossguard upwards, and sliding the trigger and lever into place in her hand. It now more closely resembled a rifle with longsword components attached although Weiss could see that it could still be used as a melee weapon, albeit one more similar to a cleaver. With another twist of Ruby's hand, the blade reverted back to its split longsword configuration.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Ruby said with a grin.
"I suppose," Weiss answered hesitantly. "It's certainly a rather straight-forward solution. Why the sudden need for a change though, Jaune?"
"Well, Miss Schnee," Jaune replied, in the process of taking his protective gear off. "Crocea Mors just wasn't cuttin' it no more." He paused, a sheepish expression crossing his face. "No pun intended."
Weiss's eyelid twitched again.
"You've seen that I much prefer to keep my distance when I fight," Jaune continued, unmindful of the white-haired girl's ire. "Course, plenty of my opponents, Grimm or not, prefer to get all up close an' personal. I was having trouble swappin' between my guns and my blade in a timely fashion, so I figured it was time to adapt. And, well, Ruby had been beggin' me to let her help with forgin' a new weapon so I decided to kill two Nevermores with one bullet."
"Yeah!" Ruby cheered. "And Crocea Mors was waaay overdue for an upgrade! Don't get me wrong, it's a great weapon but it's old. The spine was just about ready to go and the tang was already cracked!"
"The grip was makin' a weird rattlin' noise," Jaune murmured.
"Yep!" Ruby continued. "So, we melted the old girl down, I put together a gun in the style Jaune's used to, and then put them together! I wanted to add some stuff to the shield too, maybe some Dust circuits or a hardlight projector, but that kept getting shot down." The young weaponeer pouted.
The Cowboy sighed in a long-suffering manner that Weiss had become intimately familiar with herself, "Miss Rose, please, I want to keep things as simple as can be."
"But you could have used it to glide or shoot Dust blasts!"
The flat look Jaune shot Ruby dissuaded any further whining.
"I still modified the shield so the rifle can be fired while the sword is sheathed," the redhead added. "That was a little challenging, keeping the folding mechanism intact, but it works like a dream!" She picked up the scabbard from a nearby workbench and sheathed the blade before handing them both to Jaune. "Here's your new baby!"
The blond flushed. "M-miss Rose, please don't say it like that."
Ruby's face soon matched her friend's, "Sorry! It-it's a habit! I just really care about my bab- my creations! Yeah, my creations! They're special to me!"
Weiss decided to be magnanimous and rescue her partner from her embarrassment via a distraction. "It seems to me that you'll need to test the modifications out, Jaune."
"I reckon so, Miss Schnee." Jaune murmured absently, checking his weapon over.
"Would you care to join me for a spar?"
The Cowboy looked up, mild surprise writ across his face before giving her a wide grin. "I'd be honored, Miss Schnee."
Weiss returned the smile and very pointedly ignored the venomous look Ruby was shooting her over Jaune's shoulder.
