Prompt: Stolen Strawberries

"Nora takes one of Ruby's strawberries. What happens afterwards makes everyone terrified of Ruby."

Submitter: Smithrooks

This is going to be the best cake ever!

The kitchen was currently in use by one Ruby Rose, in strict defiance of the posted rules. After one too many Dust explosions, she had been banned from the kitchens for the foreseeable future, according to Goodwitch. But it wasn't her fault, Ruby knew. It was the fault of the builders, because they didn't make ovens big enough to bake the cookies needed to fuel her Semblance.

So, she had to make do by sneaking in when none of the cooks were around, and when Goodwitch was off doing whatever teachers did when they weren't teaching. Which was, in Professor Goodwitch's case and in Ruby's considered opinion, sleeping in their coffin.

Currently, Ruby was in the middle of making a huge cake for her entire team to enjoy. It was going to be chocolate and vanilla cake, with white frosting and strawberries dotting the top! It even matched Team RWBY! So it was super-duper awesome!

She'd made the cake, made the frosting, only ate a little bit of frosting from the bowl - okay, so it was a lot of frosting, but she made a lot extra! - and all that was left was adding the...

...Wait.

"Nora?" Ruby asked, staring at the orange-haired intruder? "What are you doing?"

"Ea'in' a s'rawbewwy," Nora said through a mouthful of glorious red deliciousness. "Wan' one?"

Everyone, everywhere, heard a soft cracking sound. Professor Port, after several anecdotes and bluster, would claim it was similar to a sound that he'd heard once when a mother had heard when she witnessed a Beowolf attack her young baby. Fox would, when Coco was out of earshot, would state that he heard it the last time a Grimm dared leave claw marks on her new bag.

It was the sound of reality breaking in two from sheer rage.

"Nora," Ruby said very, very calmly, "those strawberries were for the cake. Did how many did you eat?"

"Uhm..." Nora swallowed. "...All of them?" she said, staring at the empty bowl in her hands.

"Nora?"

"...Yes?"

In a spray of rose petals, Crescent Rose was unsheathed. "Run."

"Okay!" Ruby chirped, staring at all of Team JNPR. "So, just so we're all clear, you're not gonna take the strawberries without asking next time, right?"

Nora nodded.

"And you're not going to mention this to Weiss, Blake, or Yang, right?"

Nora nodded.

"Okay, great. Sorry about this, you three," she apologized to the other three members of JNPR. "I didn't mean to barge in like this. Sorry again!" she called as she left, slipping out of their dorm room and shutting the door behind her.

Nora nodded.

Ren looked at the valkyrie, her head bobbing up and down in mindless terror, and blinked. He'd seen her in so many different states: happy, upset, manic, in a berseker rage, undressed - though that one wasn't his fault - and mad; however, this was the first time he'd ever seen her like this. "Nora?" he murmured.

Nora nodded.

"She's gone," he said. "You can stop."

Nora nodded.

"T-t-that," Jaune stammered. "What was that?"

"I... I've never seen Ruby like that," Pyrrha breathed. "That was absolutely terrifying."

"Okay, team," Jaune said, his voice finally firm again. "New rule: we never, ever piss off any single member of RWBY."

Ren agreed whole-heartedly with that. Yang would destroy them with her bare hands, Weiss was… well, Weiss was Weiss and he wanted to avoid incurring her wrath on a good day, Blake was incredibly good at getting even, and Ruby… Ren never wanted to see that again.

Nora nodded.

Ozpin stood at the top of his tower, sipping idly at his coffee. "Interesting," he said. "Very interesting."

Behind him, Glynda burst into the room. "Headmaster, what happened? I was grading papers, and I exited the classroom to... Good lord! Is the entire campus covered?"

She'd finally seen the sight Ozpin had been staring at this whole time - all of Beacon Academy was covered in a thin layer of rose petals. Every square inch of the yards and pathways was covered, with the exception of small smoking craters marring the landscape here and there. "It seems Miss Rose and Miss Valkyrie have had a small disagreement," he observed. "I believe it has been resolved to Miss Rose's satisfaction, however."

He took another sip of his coffee and wondered if he'd somehow accidentally taken a cup of Bartholomew's coffee again.

Don't mess with Ruby. She will fuck you up.

Anyway, hope this one satisfied the requester. I did my best; I feel the 'what happened next' works better as a Noodle Incident when all's said and done. Showing the aftermath should be more effective the less the reader knows about what actually happened. Hopefully, I succeeded with that. Though, I probably didn't. Because I'm terrible at my job.

Right! Review time:

A) Did you like the story? Why or why not?

B) Did I capture the horror of Ruby's revenge? How could I have done it better?

Thanks, guys. And remember, if you want to give me a prompt, just give it to me in the review. And if you want to commission something specific, send me a PM or email.