For as long as she could remember, Ruby Rose had looked up to her older sister, Yang Xiao Long. She was everything Ruby wanted to be - brave, bold, beautiful, and above all else...
Stacked and absolutely ripped.
It was a near impossible challenge to beat her, but Ruby had been throwing everything she had into it since Yang first started strutting around in her sports bra and showing off that ridiculous... twelve-pack? Ever optimistic, Ruby was rarely disheartened for long. Yang excited and inspired her.
Thus, the sibling rivalry for the ultimate abs was born.
Ruby looked down at herself, eyebrows raised. She cupped her modest breasts to lift her cropped vest for a better view - as far as she could tell, things were going pretty well. A cobbled road of solid muscle was laid out before her, as defined in the tiny triangles of straited definition beneath her chest as it was in those harder to build lining beneath her navel. Her ten pack abs were chiselled into her petite frame like some kind of brutal marble carving. Her upper obliques gave her the impression of thick, jagged claws reaching around her body to grab at the abs between them. Her lower obliques, largest and thickest of her muscles, swelled and tightened with her steady breaths.
Next, Ruby's eyes immediately locked onto the absurd, impossible terrain of her sister's stomach—not just a twelve-pack, but something closer to fourteen distinct ridges of muscle, each one bulging with the kind of definition that made bystanders question if she'd been vacuum-sealed into her own skin. Her abs weren't just visible; they looked hostile, like a geological formation that could crack walnuts if someone dared press against them.
Ruby’s fingers twitched at her sides, resisting the urge to poke Yang’s stomach just to see if it would ripple like water. "Okay, what is your routine?" she demanded, gesturing at Yang’s abdomen. "Because I’ve been doing crunches until I hallucinate, and I’m still two whole abs short of whatever this is!"
Yang grinned, flexing just enough to make the ridges of her stomach shift. "Oh, you know," she drawled, stretching her arms overhead in a way that made her entire torso ripple. "Just the usual—deadlifting Nevermores, bench-pressing boulders, existing with flawless genetics—"
Blake, leaning against the doorframe with a book in hand, didn’t even glance up as she deadpanned: "She does planks while reading romance novels. Upside down. For three hours."
Yang’s grin widened as she threw an arm around Blake’s shoulders. "And someone here keeps me motivated," she added, winking—though she didn’t notice the way Blake’s sleeve pulled taut against the sudden shift, just enough to hint at the coiled power beneath Faunus' frame.
Ruby groaned, flopping backward onto the gym mat. "How are you even real?" she whined, staring up at the ceiling as if it might offer answers. Her own stomach growled—part hunger, part frustration—and she absently rubbed at the dense muscle there.
Weiss, who had been silently observing with her arms crossed, stepped forward. "Stop sulking. You're comparing yourself to a genetic outlier. Focus on your own progress."
"Aw, come on, Weiss," Yang said, "let the kid have her moment. She's getting there! Besides, you're what, nineteen? I didn't hit my stride 'til I was twenty-two. You've got time."
Weiss’s heel tapped impatiently. "Weighted planks. Now. Get up."
Ruby didn’t move. "Make me."
Ruby barely had time to yelp before Weiss dragged her toward the gym.
Yang whistled low as Weiss dragged Ruby away. "Damn, Ice Queen. Respect." she murmured, abs flexing reflexively as Blake's fingers traced one of the deeper ridges.
Blake hummed, pressing her thumb into the dense muscle just to watch it twitch. "You realize if Weiss actually gets Ruby to your level, you'll have to start training again too, right?"
Yang's grin turned feral. "Oh, I'm counting on it."