Hello, this is Dr. Schadenfreude, and this is my first story on this site! Constructive criticism is much appreciated. I don't own RWBY, Roosterteeth does and that's fine with me! With that said, let's get this rolling!

Ruby loved being at Beacon and she loved being with her team and her friends. But at times, everyone needs some time alone to think and relax and Ruby was no different. It took a while, but Ruby eventually found a sheltered balcony that had some lawn chairs and where hardly anyone went to and where she could kick back and enjoy the view, maybe even pop open a book or magazine.

One afternoon, Ruby was so deeply invested in one of her many weapons catalogs looking for upgrades for her 'sweetheart', that she didn't hear the sound of footsteps approaching the veranda. When the person arriving saw her, he smiled softly and let out a small chuckle.

"Hey Little Red, still the same weapons fanatic from back at Signal, huh?" the mysterious, stetson-wearing young man said warmly.

Ruby jumped a little when she heard that voice, but it sounded so familiar to her… She turned around and almost immediately began openly grinning. She dropped her spontaneously forgotten catalog to the ground and rushed over to give her only friend at Beacon from Signal a big hug.

"Cobalt!" she squealed, rushing to embrace him with almost enough speed and force to knock them both down to the ground. The young man held his ground though, and began to openly laugh happily as he returned the embrace.

"Hey Ruby, it's great to see you too. How've you been?" he asked the young crimson-ette, breaking the hug. "And before you say anything, I saw you in the news when you stopped that Torch-somthin' guy from robbing that dust shop, so I know how you got here early." he explained quickly to save Ruby from having to give an explanation.

"Oh, well I've been doing pretty good so far. I mean, I'm the leader of my team and Yang is on my team so she's still there for me. I've also been making some friends, Team JNPR being most of them." Ruby summarized quickly.

"Do you have a picture of your team and JNPR that I can see?" Cobalt asked, curious.

"Yeah," she responded, dragging the last part on a bit, teasingly.

"But?" he responded, knowing what she was going to request next.

"You have to show me your ears again, and keep your hat off." Ruby explained, smiling as she did so. Cobalt sighed with a knowing smile on his face and took off his hat, revealing his faunus wolf ears to her like he'd done many times before. Cobalt Thompson was special, he wasn't just a Faunus, he was actually half-Human, half-Faunus.

Ruby smiled and giggled with glee as she saw the little appendages, surrounded by his dirty blonde, blue-highlighted hair, again. And true to her word, she showed him a picture of her team with Team JNPR in one big group on her scroll.

"The girl with white hair is my team partner, you may know her as Weiss Schnee." Ruby told Cobalt, who looked at her with surprise replacing the smile that was on his face.

"Really? Wow, I'm actually very sorry for you. As far as I remember, the Schnee Dust Company is hardly known for kindness in their methods." he responded, his voice surprisingly full of contempt.

"Cobalt, I know you really don't like that company, but Weiss is different." Ruby tried to reassure him.

"I hope you're right, but I'll believe it when I see it." Cobalt replied. "Anyway, who's the girl with the bow?" he asked, going back to the topic of the picture.

"Oh, that's Blake. She's one of the quiet ones in our group and she's also a cat faunus." Ruby explained.

"That explains the bow. Strange, I can't help but feel that I knew her from somewhere.." Cobalt responded with confusion etched in his voice.

Upon hearing Cobalt say this, Ruby instantly got worried for both Blake and Cobalt. She sighed and asked him "Cobalt, can you promise you won't get mad when I tell you something?"

Cobalt raised an eyebrow at this. "I'll try, but tell me about what?" he asked, suspicious.

Ruby drew in a breath, "BlakeusedtobeapartoftheWhiteFang!" she spewed out faster than the Tasmanian Devil when he's high on bath salts. (Luckily for both of them, Cobalt could understand what he dubbed "Ruby-speak")

Cobalt's icy-blue eyes widened in surprise at this revelation, but then his eyebrows furrowed slightly. "Wait, keyword being 'was', right?" he asked, causing Ruby to be confused for a few seconds but when she figured out what he meant, she nodded in affirmation. Cobalt sighed, "Ok. If she was smart enough to leave that damned terrorist group, then she's okay in my book." he explained before looking back at the picture, while being unable to shake the feeling that he had met her before.

Ruby, after sighing in relief, also looked back at the picture and pointed to her sister. "There's Yang, same as ever. Hey, do you two still have that weird competition thing going on?" She asked him while smiling. Yang and Cobalt, while they are good friends, have had a friendly rivalry going on since they met.

"You know it!" he responded while grinning again. "Now, who're the other four? I'm guessing they're Team JNPR?"

"Yeah, the blonde guy's Jaune, his team's leader, he's nice but he's even more awkward than I am. To his credit, he's actually pretty good at leading his team during a fight and he never backs down." she explained with some admiration.

"He seems like a nice guy, and do I detect a little crush on the blonde knight from you?" Cobalt responded with a teasing grin.

"What?! No! I do not have 'a crush' on him!" replied Ruby with indignation, causing the young Faunus-Human hybrid to chuckle happily.

"Relax, Red, I was just teasing. Although Yang probably does enough of that to you already though, huh?" he noted, smirking. "Hey, is that Pyrrha Nikos?" Cobalt asked in surprise, pointing at the orange-haired warrior in the photo.

"Yeah, she's Jaune's partner and she really seems to have taken an interest in him for some reason. I'm guessing you've seen her fight in those tournaments before she came here?" she asked and Cobalt nodded in affirmation.

"Now who are those last two?" Cobalt asked, "They seem to be pretty close if this picture is anything to go off of." he noted.

"The guy in green is JNPR's quiet guy, Ren and the girls right next to him is Nora. Yeah, their relationship is confusing to me because Nora says that they're not 'together' together, but the way they play off each other probably says otherwise." Ruby explained. "How has your time at Beacon been so far?" Ruby asked, switching topics to Cobalt's experience.

"It's actually been going pretty good. I haven't been harassed much and all my classes, while fairly crazy, have been going great. I've still got my old fiddle with me, that's a plus. My team's pretty cool too, they don't really care that I'm, well, what I am and they're fun to hang around with." Cobalt summarized. "There's actually an interesting situation with my team concerning the members." He added with a smile.

"And what's that?" Ruby asked, eager to find out.

"You see how most teams here have a fairly equal gender ratio? You know, it's usually two girls/two guys, four girls, or four guys?" he asked her. Ruby thought about what her old friend said and found he was right, so she nodded 'yes'."Well my team is composed of two other guys and one girl, who just so happens to be the team leader. And rightfully so, because she's a brilliant strategist, plus she also keeps us in line 'cause she is just plain scary when she's mad." He finished.

"Really? How's she scary?" Ruby asked with a small laugh.

"Wouldn't you be scared of making someone mad if said person tore an Ursa in half with their damn bare hands?" he asked. Ruby's eyes widened in amazement at this. "Wow, that is scary." she noted simply.

"Yeah, it is. And here's somethin' funny, me and the other two guys actually made a little salute that we do whenever she calls us to attention. We'll show it to you whenever our teams meet up." Cobalt noted with a small grin on his face.

"Promise?" Ruby replied, at which Cobalt nodded with his grin still going. Ruby then thought of a question that she'd forgotten to ask, "Cobalt, how's the search for your sister going?" At this, Cobalt's grinning face almost instantly turned into an expression of solemnity. Ruby noticed this and instantly tried to apologize for bringing up the subject. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No." he interrupted. "No, it's fine." Cobalt moved over to the balcony fence and leaned on it, sighing. "I haven't found anything as to where she is since my hometown was destroyed by those bastards of the White Fang and Schnee Dust Company. Not even a hint, and that has me worried. I'm scared that the White Fang might have captured her, if they have, I-." he stopped before darker thoughts could come into his mind. "I just don't know what to do." he said exasperatedly. "I know what I can do, sure," he added darkly, "but that would involve even more pain being caused and also would be a violation of that promise I made to myself. The promise of not letting what happened to me happen to anyone else, if I can do anything about it." he finished with a downcast tone.

Ruby, wanting to bring Cobalt out of this stupor, walked to him and put her hand on his shoulder comfortingly. "Cobalt, I know you'll find her someday. I know that, Yang knows that, and your team knows that. And when you do find her, I don't think anyone would try to stop you from getting to her. But if you need any help at all, you'll have it in me, my team, your team, and Team JNPR. Okay?" she said reassuringly.

It took a few moments for Cobalt to respond to this statement, but when he did, he turned around with a soft smile and pulled Ruby into a thankful embrace, which she happily returned. "Thanks Ruby. You've always had my back, I can't tell you how much that means to me." he replied in a soft voice. They held the hug for a few moments until Cobalt cleared his throat and put his hat back on. "We should probably get goin' now, our teams might be gettin' worried wonderin' where we are." he suggested while fighting a blush.

"Good idea," Ruby replied, "though if Yang sees us walking together, she would probably tease both you and me about 'being together'." she explained worriedly. 'Although I wouldn't be against the idea of that.' she thought to herself.

"Sounds like 'Blondie' to me." Cobalt said while chuckling.

The day after those two's reunion, Teams RWBY & JNPR met Cobalt's team and became fast friends with each of them. And they found the salute that the men of Cobalt's team made for their leader to be pretty entertaining. Since then, Ruby's time at Beacon has gotten much more bearable with her friends, both new and old.

A/N: And that's the end of that! Let me know what you thought in the reviews. But if you have any criticism, please be constructive and give me some pointers please! Also, if you're actually interested in using my OC, his description is in the link on my profile. And special thanks to author Alley Cat Sunflower for kindly giving me the encouragement to actually do this. If you want to see what the salute was, search on youtube: "Much ado About Nothing 1993 Dogberry".

Anyway, this has been Dr. Schadenfreude and I hope all you lovely people have a good day.