Ages eight and eleven

Taiyang couldn't help but laugh as he saw Weiss' bicycle emerge from the woods between his property from the Schnee place. (Jacques was always very firm about calling it their 'estate' but Tai didn't care. Besides, Jacques was a man entirely too aware of his importance as far as Taiyang was concerned.) The white-haired girl rode up to the back porch before dismounting and using the kickstand to instead of just tossing her bike on the ground like every other kid her age he'd seen. Before she could knock on the glass door, he yelled out, "Her and Yang are out in the shed," not even bothering to take his eyes off the soccer game he was watching. Today's match was Patch vs. Vale City and he didn't want to miss a minute of it.

Come to think of it, what had Ruby been up to out in the shed lately? Letting her take over his dad's old workshop had seemed a brilliant idea when he'd thought of it. At least until she built a trebuchet and, well, tried to lay siege to her school to demand cookies with lunch every day forever. Thankfully the only ammunition Ruby had been able to get was a couple of buckets of water balloons.

And then there had been the go-kart. One of Jacques employees, not Klein, what had been the girl's name? Never mind, it didn't matter. Anyway, she'd brought Weiss over instead of letting her ride her bike like normal, and Tai had needed to run to the store for something. So he'd left the woman watching the three girls only to come back to Ruby using the street in front of the house as a drag strip in an electric go-kart she'd built, with Weiss and Yang cheering her on from the side of the road. Tai had read the young woman, Trifa, that was her name, the riot act and then called Jacques and let him know what happened. Tai assumed the woman had gotten fired, but at the time, he didn't care. And then he'd sat down with the three girls and explained that things like go-karts were dangerous and should only be used under adult supervision. Tai had grounded Ruby and Yang for two weeks. Jacques had done the same with Weiss. He'd almost hated doing it because he couldn't help but admire Ruby's ingenuity. Almost. But with a couple of headstrong girls like Ruby and Yang, he couldn't let them walk all over him, could he?

He hoped Weiss got along with Yang's new friend, Blake. Blake's parents had moved into the neighborhood while Weiss was off on her trip and they were worried that Blake would have trouble making friends. But Yang had taken a liking to the shy girl and before you could say "tuna salad" her and Ruby were dragging Blake all over the neighborhood.

Tai was just about to sit down with a fresh cold beer in his hand when his phone rang. Annoyed, he pulled it out of his pocket, then took a deep breath before answering. "She's out in the shed with the girls, Jacques."

"I see." Most people wouldn't have heard the anger in Jacques' voice but Tai could hear it loud and clear. "Weiss is supposed to be here for a party I'm hosting for some investors."

"Got it," Taiyang answered with a scowl, glad Jacques couldn't see him right now. A party full of stuffy self-important people trying to impress each other with how important they were while Jacques tried to talk them out of their money. No wonder Daddy's little hellion Weiss had run for it as fast as she could. "I'll send her home."

"No, I'd rather send a car around. That way she can't 'get lost' on the way home."

So there was a brain behind that ridiculous mustache. "Alright, let me go run her out of the shed and I'll have her waiting." Taiyang stood and stretched, looking wistfully at the television. If whoever Jacques sent was fast enough, he just might catch the end of the game.

Behind the house, he could see that the big doors on the shed were open and the four girls were pushing… something out of the shed. It looked like it'd started life as the go-kart, but with things rearranged. It only had three wheels, for one thing, one in the front and two in the back. And there was a propeller and fins on the back. Wait, why did it have a propeller on it? And why were the girls all wearing their bicycle helmets? And what was that long thing that Yang and Blake were hoisting on top and bolting on?

Stunned shock turned into panic as the four girls all climbed aboard, hoisting buckets of water balloons with them. Taiyang ran out of the house, screaming, "Ruby, turn that thing off!" Because who else but his youngest daughter would be behind the controls of a contraption she built.

But it was too late. All Taiyang could do was watch as the machine sped across the yard, propeller at the back buzzing away. It bounced once, then twice, and finally lurched into the air like a drunken albatross that suddenly remembered it had wings. He almost thought it wasn't going to clear the fence, but it pulled up just in time.

Dammit. Jacques was going to be pissed.

Jacques was less angry than he expected. Since he'd had to go to Mistral on business for a month, he'd taken his family with him. He'd thought it would do the three of them some good to travel, with the added benefit of distracting them from their mother's worsening condition. As long as it had been since Ruby and Weiss had seen each other, he'd expected them to get up to some sort of trouble or another fairly quickly. But for Ruby to have constructed something that actually flew, well, that part did surprise him.

He sighed as he watched the black shape rising from Taiyang's property. It was too much to hope that Ruby had built any sort of safety gear into the thing. There was no arguing the girl's sheer brilliance with anything mechanical or electrical, but forethought and planning were not among her gifts. The best Jacques could hope for was that they managed to land without severe injury. And Taiyang was already calling the police.

Wait. Was the thing turning this way?

"Yeeehaaaaw!"

"Siddown, Yang."

"Aw, come on sis, this is so freaking awesome!" Yang leaned over the side and hocked up a loogie, watching it disappear into the trees below.

"One, you're not much shorter than the rotor. Wanna get hit on the head, or your hair caught? Two, your dumb fat butt being out of your seat messes with the balance, and, um, this is the first time we've flown this thing, remember?" Ruby risked taking her eyes off where they were going to glare at her sister. "And three, if you don't siddown, I'm gonna roll and dump you out."

"I'll show you whose butt is fat and dumb," the blonde grumbled none too quietly as she sat back down, buckling the seatbelt her sister had insisted on. Sheesh, since when did her sister turn into a bigger worry-wart than Weiss? Ruby had been the one to insist they wear their bike helmets and tie up their hair. Okay, maybe she had a point about the hair thing. Yang glanced backward at the propeller and imagined getting her hair caught in it. That would majorly suck.

"Wait, you never tried this thing?" Weiss stated at her best friend in shock. "But, but we were almost finished with it when I left! I figured you'd do a, what's it called, a test flight while I was gone."

"W-we wouldn't have built this thing if it wasn't for you. And then Blake moved in down the street, so Yang begged me to make it a four-seater, and that took a while, so…" Truth be told, Ruby wasn't sure why she hadn't tried to fly The Infernal Contraption (as Weiss had dubbed it) at least once, but, well, she'd promised Weiss a flight, and Ruby figured they'd only get one flight before they were grounded forever. Or until Dad forgot why they were grounded. So maybe by the time they were a hundred. Maybe. She was just really glad that flying gave her a reason not to look at Weiss right now. Seeing her again made Ruby feel kinda funny.

"Are we ready to begin our bombing run?" Ruby just about hit the rotor herself when Yang leaned forward and yelled in her ear. "Yang, scaring the pilot is stupid even for you!" she yelped.

"'Bombing run?'" Now Weiss was giving both of them a weird look. "'What bombing run?"

"Neither of them would tell me." It was the first complete sentence Weiss had heard out of the new girl, what was her name, Blake or something like that. "I just know I spent all day yesterday filling water balloons. And helping them figure out where to put them."

Yang grinned at Weiss. "Well, you see, princess..."

Jacques suppressed a groan as some of the guests on the patio noticed Ruby's aircraft and started pointing at it and wondering what it was. "Nothing to worry about, everyone. A neighbor's daughter is ridiculously mechanically gifted and has apparently managed to build something that flies. The police have already been called and should be on their way. Now, Mister Vasilias, you were saying about that new textile operation in Mistral?"

"Well, you see-" Before Vasilias could continue, Ruby's aircraft made a swooping pass over the patio, making some of the guests duck. Now Jacques did scowl. Apparently, the police either hadn't believed Taiyang or were a little slow getting their helicopter in the air. "Take that, fat-butts!" and other childish insults could barely be heard over the sound of the craft's engine.

"Can you believe this? Parents who let their children act like this should be locked up, and their children right next to them!" This came from a particularly vapid woman who was half her husband's age at best. Jacques couldn't stand the woman, but her husband was a good candidate for investing in his new project so he'd invited them. Now he was regretting it.

Jacques sighed theatrically. "As I said, the police have already been called and should be here soon. Hopefully, they can get the children down before they come to any harm."

"And lock them up. Things like this are why I never want to have children." As the aircraft came around for another pass, the woman laughed evilly. "Isn't that your dau-"

Splash.

Something brightly colored hit the woman right in the chest, drenching her in water. "What the fucking hell?" she swore, her normally high-class accent vanishing for a more coarse drawl. "It's bad enough your shitty little brat is riding around on that thing, now she's throwing shit at us?"

"Now, dear," her husband began, but she rolled right over him. "Don't you 'now dear' me! We should fucking sue his ass. Maybe we'd get enough money so you'll stop bitching about how rich he is."

"I think it's best you leave," Jacques said, his eyes narrowing. Good investor or not, there was a limit to what he'd put up with, and she'd just crossed it.

Before the obnoxious woman or her husband could answer, more of the brightly colored projectiles rained down on the crowd, soaking some with direct hits and splashing others with near-misses. One woman tumbled backward into the pool, her dress lifting high enough to show that she really should have reconsidered her choice of undergarments today. Or any undergarments at all, really.

And of course, Weiss was hurling water balloons and insults just as fiercely as the craft's other two passengers. Even Ruby was tossing a few herself, though Jacques hoped she was keeping one hand on the controls. It was hard to be sure.

Suddenly the incredible ridiculousness of the whole situation slammed feet-first into the forefront of his mind, making Jacques burst out laughing. Somehow the girls had built an aircraft and what did they do with it? Terrorize a party Weiss had been trying to avoid with water balloons. He was so busy laughing he didn't notice until the second water balloon hit him, this time in the head. Jacques cleared his throat, then raised his voice to be heard over the yelling and engine noise. "Everyone, let's move this inside. Apparently, my daughter and her friends have decided a little precipitation is the order of the day."

Thankfully most of Jacques's guests were taking things with good humor. With a few exceptions, they found being bombarded with water balloons by four young girls in a home-made aircraft hilarious, some of them even going so far as to ask the household staff for water balloons to throw back.

Now Taiyang and Jacques were standing by the door to the patio where the party had originally been held. An officer from the Patch police department stood next to them, sipping a cup of Jacques's coffee as the three of them watched the helicopter from the Vale police department try to force the girls' aircraft down. The officer shook his head. "Speaking strictly for myself, Mister Schnee, Mister Xiao Long, it's pretty incredible that your girls managed to build something that flew. It's stayed in the air for what, two hours? But we have to get them to come down. For one thing, nobody's inspected it to make sure it's safe, and, well, pilot's licenses are a thing. I don't think they issue them to eleven-year-olds."

"Ruby's piloting it," Taiyang said absentmindedly as he watched the police helicopter veer away from another near-collision. "She's eight. And they're wearing their bicycle helmets."

"Eight-year-olds then. The point is-" The officer stopped mid-sentence as something flew off the girls' aircraft. "That didn't look good."

Ruby frowned as something behind her went thunk. She glanced to make sure where the police helicopter was, then dared another look at the engine. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh? What's uh-oh mean?" Weiss had been enjoying herself, even going so far as to half-stand in her seat and show her butt to the police helicopter, but Ruby's tone was worrying. Her father was going ground her till she was a grandmother for this.

"We gotta land."

"Why?" Yang pouted. She was having a blast. The blonde was pretty sure she'd learned some new swear words from the cops in the helicopter. Ruby had gotten a little too close a few times.

"The propeller broke. Now shaddap and sit down you big dumb butt because I gotta figure out how to land." Without a word Weiss reached up and squeezed Ruby's shoulder, leaning forward with her as Ruby looked around for somewhere to land.

Down on the ground, Jacques and Tai tried in vain to keep up as the girls' aircraft headed for the front lawn, clearly in trouble. It hit the ground, bounced back into the air, then came down again, this time rolling over and coming to rest on its side. Taiyang was the first to reach them. "Is everyone okay?"

"My arm hurts," Ruby whimpered. "We're in big trouble, aren't we, dad?"

Now Jacques caught up, a guest from the party who was a doctor behind him. "Most likely, but the important part is, none of you are badly hurt. Here, let Doctor Tukson have a look at your arm, Ruby."

As the sun reached the horizon, Taiyang and Jacques found themselves once again on the front lawn, looking at the wreckage of the girls' aircraft. An officer stood watch from a convenient bench, just to make sure they didn't tamper with the evidence. "Man this is nuts,' Tai said, shaking his head. "Trust Ruby to build a damn helicopter."

"Gyrocopter," Jacques said from where he was crouched down and peering at the seats in the wreckage.

"Say what?"

"It's a gyrocopter, not a helicopter. No power to the main rotor." Jacques stood, dusting his hands off on his trousers. "And to look at it, I think they cannibalized my golf cart for some of the parts. I was wondering where they got the motor."

"I, uh, I didn't know you golfed," Taiyang said, not knowing what else to say. The closest he'd ever been to a golf course was mini golf.

Jacques shrugged. "I tried it for a while, trying to impress some investors. Went a little overboard and bought my own golf cart. Ridiculous game, I hated it with a passion." He cleared his throat. "It occurs to me that we're looking at this the wrong way."

"I don't see how," Tai replied, shaking his head. "Our daughters built a, what'd you call it, a gyrocopter and flew it around and got us in a whole mess of trouble."

"The 'whole mess of trouble' is what I have lawyers for. If they can't get this reduced to a slap on the wrist, I'm overpaying them. In the end, no-one was hurt except for Ruby's broken arm." Jacques gestured toward the wreck. "Our daughters managed something most adults would have struggled with. They built an aircraft. Talent like that should be encouraged."

Tai scratched the back of his head. "I don't follow."

"It's simple," Jacques said as they headed back toward the house. "I'd bet most of the engineering work was done by Weiss and Ruby. Yang isn't stupid, but I don't see this as her area of expertise."

"Yeah but-"

Jacques reached out and opened the door, holding it open for Taiyang. "And I'd bet as bright as Ruby is, she's bored in regular school a lot. If you want, I'll pay Ruby's tuition to the same school Weiss is attending. The curriculum is much more challenging and rigorous."

"Huh." Taiyang stood there, watching as the other girls decorated Ruby's cast. "You know, I think it's worth trying."