RWBY: Rise of the Beasts

Chapter 15: Burning the Candle

In the Beacon ballroom, teams Orca and RWBY, minus Blake, were currently working on decorating for the dance. Yang and Rhinox were both doing the heavy lifting, with Yang moving a speaker almost the same size of her body around with ease while Rhinox effortlessly picked up and scattered a few tables around the edges of the room. Airazor and Optimus were hanging streamers and decorations, with the former flying up and hanging streamers from the chandeliers while the latter was hanging upside down from the railing above as he taped some more streamers against the higher parts of the columns around them. Cheetor was currently digging threw a box labeled "DECORATIONS" as Weiss simply rolled her eyes when Cheetor began throwing random junk out of the box.

Ruby, however, wasn't doing much in terms of decorating. Actually, unlike everyone else in the room, she seemed to be in low spirits, sitting at a table while resting her head on her hand. However, Ruby's bummed out mood quickly changed to surprise when Weiss suddenly slammed two nearly identical pieces of white cloth down in front of the red reaper.

"I need you to pick a tablecloth," Weiss informed Ruby with a smile while sliding the two pieces of cloth closer to her. Ruby couldn't really see any differences between the two pieces of cloth.

"Aren't they both the same?" Ruby asked, looking back up at Weiss.

At Ruby's response, Weiss' smile fell as she sighed in frustration. "I don't even know why I asked!" Weiss remarked before turning away, only to roll her eyes when she found Cheetor messing around with some Halloween decorations. "No, those aren't for the dance!" Weiss snapped before storming over towards Cheetor.

"It was in the box! I'm innocent!" Cheetor defended, quickly taking a werewolf mask off his face and dropping it back into the box before rummaging through another box with the actual dance decorations in it.

Meanwhile, Yang walked over towards where Ruby was with a large speaker on her shoulder. Setting it down, the impact bounced both the table Ruby was at and Ruby herself. But, the red reaper was completely unfazed by the sudden bounce, simply resting her head on her arm on the table in disappointment.

Yang walked over towards her sister while brushing her hands. "So, have you picked a dress yet?" Yang asked.

"What's the point?" Ruby replied in a depressed tone. "Who cares about the dance if Blake isn't going?"

"Oh don't worry, she's going," Yang assured confidently with her hands on her hips.

"And how exactly is that gonna happen?" Rhinox asked as he set a table down near the one Ruby was at.

"I have my ways," Yang replied simply with a smirk as she started looking around at their handy work. But when she did, her smirk instantly fell when she saw Weiss making Cheetor put some doilies on the tables. "Guys! I thought we agreed: no doilies!"

"Hey, she's the one who told me to put them out!" Cheetor quickly defended himself while pointing at Weiss.

At this, Weiss walked up to the blond brawler and stuck her finger at her face. "If I don't get doilies, you don't get fog machines!" Weiss argued. Meanwhile, Optimus and Cheetor were now unboxing the fog machines.

Before Yang and Weiss could get into an argument about the fog machines and doilies, they were interrupted by the sound of the ballroom door opening, looking over, they saw both Sun and Neptune walk into the room, with Sun admiring all the decorations already set up as the duo walked over towards the others.

"Your dance is gonna have fog machines?" Neptune asked as he approached.

"We were thinking about it . . ." Weiss replied, now acting sweet as she stepped up to meet Neptune.