Love was in the air at the local Argus pizza parlor, as a menagerie of couples were spread out around the medium sized restaurant on single and double dates. Every booth and table on every side and corner was occupied. Along with the entire center. That is except for one small section off to one back corner. A booth large enough to fit a small party, and clear about 3 tables on all sides, as if the other customers were avoiding this particular area like a plague. It was at this particular booth where seven particular teenage heroes are having a night out with friends, until they noticed the love filled atmosphere which caused them to discuss a somewhat unfortunate subject.
Why do none of them have a significant other?
They certainly had their friendship and camaraderie. They were fighting side-by-side in a secret war after all. And then there was this. Not that most of them cared, but it was still something of an oddity for a couple of teens who have been trained to defend mankind from Grimm on a regular basis not to have a least a few potential lovers. These others were just simply civilians or even other students enjoying their daily lives together. Which begged the question: What was wrong with these particular teenagers that made them less eligible than others around them?
"Geez, you could let a Beowolf loose in this restaurant and these people wouldn't even flinch." Jaune spoke out to break the silence after the previous topic the group was talking about had ended.
"Yeah. It's like some fairy got bored and decided to drop a love potion in the middle of the room and we walked into the aftermath." Ruby joked.
"Or some kind of love filled gas bomb." Yang added before eating into a slice.
"Now that I think about it. Maybe it's like the love elixir from the Valentine's event on Spirits of Supremacy. First time I saw someone's avatar get hit with that back when we were at Signal, they got hit with Infatuation for a week!"
"From a Hand-crafted Love Cube?" She asked with disbelief.
"Yep. Must have been a client-side glitch on his end. But he was hit with Infatuation for a whole week, he actually had to delete his profile because Infatuation wouldn't wear off, even if he was killed." The younger girl replied.
"Damn!" Yang said with a chuckle. "Now I see why Kobe had some explaining to do to Byzz when he had been too close for comfort to her avatar."
The sisters had a laugh upon the mention of that memory, to which the teens had resumed their dinner when Blake had spoken up after eating part of her pizza.
"Hey, what's wrong with all us?" Blake spoke out.
"What do you mean?" Weiss then spoke.
"I mean why can't any of us get a date." She explained, "Except for Nora and Ren of course."
"AH HA, ah ha, haha, hahaha, We're not TOGETHER together." Nora spoke out with a very nervous, if slight stutter. Out of sheer force of habit.
"Yes, we are Nora." Ren responded very bluntly.
"Uh, but, Ren! I have no idea what you're talking about you silly, silly head." Nora responded. With a secondary response. "I mean not that I am opposed to you and me being together together, and that's not to say you aren't handsome, I mean you are handsome, not to mention completely eligible, but I'm just saying you and me together together would completely throw off the balance of our friendship and…" Which she said with a crescendo in speed until interrupted.
"…Mmmpphh!" Ren had locked lips with Nora and met her tongue with his own. Nora could only respond with "… Mmmmmph, mmph!" As their kiss lasted for about 12 seconds, all while her eyes had become wide like that of a doll, and with his hands caressing the sides of her face.
After Ren had released the kiss and his old friend's face, he had, unsurprisingly, caused Nora's face to turn red as Ruby's hood.
Ren simply responded with "Together, together?" To which Nora could only respond with a couple of stutters before fainting into his mid-torso, with a half excited-half relived exhale, in loved filled ecstasy. He then reassured the group with a simply Ren-like statement "She'll be fine." As he then put his arm around her shoulder.
After a no more than perhaps 10 or 20 seconds of a break in the conversation caused by Ren and Nora's romantic bliss time, which could rival and surpass the romantic energy that was abuzz throughout the restaurant, it was time to answer the question that Blake had purposed. 'What's wrong with all of them?' As fate would have it. Yang would answer the question.
"Well now that we're tongue with that detail," which was met with groans and head shakes from her conscious friends, "I can answer that. And I'll start with you!" The Brawler says as she points at Weiss.
"Why me?" Weiss responded hastily.
"Because you're pretty easy to figure out, ice queen." Yang said back.
"Are we seriously doing that again?"
"We never stopped." Ruby quickly threw out into the chaos, which gave the conscious group a good laugh. Weiss squinted intensely. And then she responded with, "At least I'm not Red for cookies." She said looking more chipper. To which everyone just groaned.
"What?" Weiss said, as tsun as usual.
"Even for you, that's bad." Ruby answered with a cringe.
"Seriously that makes my tongue joke look like a comedy classic."
"Shut up." Weiss said looking only somewhat shutdown.
"Anyway, your problem with not finding a boyfriend is that you just hate everyone that gives you attention."
"Huh?"
"Seriously you had vomit boy over here all over you for like a year and you didn't go for it."
"First of all, I wasn't interested in Jaune considering he would never shut up about how he wanted to date me. It got so bad I once froze him because he asked me out." Much to everyone's horror.
"And you are also incredibly mean." Yang replied.
"In her defense," Jaune argued. "I did take my Mom's advice about girls in the dorkiest way possible. Especially with that guitar and singing thing… seriously, could I get lamer."
"See, even he admits it. Thank you Jaune."
"Mm-hmm."
"Jaune, stick up for yourself." Responded Ruby, acting like a caring little sister.
"Mmm… Nah!"
"Come on, this is what I'm talking about, Weiss can be so mean sometimes."
"I admit to being a dork, which I was and still am sometimes, plus my schemes were SUPER lame. So, can you really say she's being mean in this instance?"
"Exactly." Weiss responded, sounding confident as ever.
"Chill Ice Queen, I got this." Jaune responded.
This response was met with no more than about 10 seconds of silence, before Weiss spoke up, "Did… did you just Yang me?"
To which Jaune responded, "Yes, I did. Deal with it. Also, I might mention that you and Neptune are kind of-sort of a thing."
"Uh… No, no we are not." At which Weiss blushed quite profusely.
"Then why are you blushing?" Ren inquired. Which only made her turn redder and look down at the table with no response.
"I thought Jaune's singing was pretty good, and very enduring." Blake chimed in.
"Yeah, if he had asked me, I might have said yes." Ruby added.
"Oh. Well…Thanks ladies." Which was returned with smiles and nods from both Ruby and Blake.
"Hmm…I think Blake is up next!"
"I'm sorry?" The Faunus replied, looking up from her pizza after a bite.
"We're going to look at your personality problems that prevent you from getting a boyfriend." Yang said affirmatively.
"Sigh. Ok, if it will get you to stop being mean to people, criticize away."
"First of all, you're all moody, and overly secretive, and grumpy, and…"
"I think the adjective you are looking for is I'm always so 'Blakey'." Blake interrupted and rebutted. Met with some slight laughter before she responded, "I can make bad wordplay too." Yang glared only slightly. But then she smiled and continued.
"I suppose you got me cat girl."
"Cat puns…funny."
"But let us not forget your other glaring flaw."
"I'm pretty sure we already covered them."
"All except for one kitty cat."
"And what is that?"
"You probably know his name."
Blake froze and perked her ear's up.
"He's blonde, like me, he has a great ass, also like me."
"I have… no idea what you're talking about."
"He also has a case…"
"Don't say it."
"Of…"
"Stop now before you do something really bad."
"Sun baked…"
"Yang!"
"ABS!"
Yang smiled confidently while Blake' ears drooped and she frowned.
"You had a thing with Sun?!" Ruby spoke.
"First of all, it wasn't a thing."
"Come on, Blake. You know what I'm talking about. I know you've learned to praise the Sun." Her partner had said with a sly wink.
"What?!" She replied in embarrassment. Her feline ears folding and face turning pink. "I didn't, that's not what I- -We're not- -Ugh! You're the worst, Yang." She finished with an annoyed arm fold.
"Aren't I, though? Come on Blake it's obvious you're so thirsty for him." The blonde replied coyly.
"Say's the girl who… sexually harasses people. But Sun and I aren't TOGETHER together, as uh. As Nora pointed out."
"Your flustered expression seems to say otherwise." Ren observed.
"Zip it, Ren." The cat girl said with even more vexation. "Since I was on the run back home to Menagerie, Sun had…Well, followed me onto the boat. But he wasn't stalking me unlike Adam." She added with an eyeroll upon uttering the bull's name.
"Awww. He followed you across the world, how romantic." Yang responded only somewhat sarcastically. At which Blake looked down with her blush hardening.
"Next we shall move on to my dear, darling baby sister." Much to everyone's confusion and the question: 'Why would Yang criticize Ruby?' Except for Ruby who seemed almost prepared and waiting for this moment.
"Oh yes. Lets talk about my flaws as to why I can't get a boyfriend." She said leaning in and waiting to hear what she had to say. "Would you like to start?"
"Well first off there's… well there's… actually I got nothing. I have no idea why you don't have a boyfriend."
"Gee, I wonder." The younger sibling replied sarcastically.
Ruby then regales Yang of a time at Beacon where she was talking with a boy, Tanner, who had his eye on the heroine.
-
"Wow, Ruby, those were some pretty cool moves you did in Port's class."
"Thanks Tanner." She said as she held her right arm sheepishly.
"So…I wanted to ask you something."
"Yeah?"
"There's a new edition of the Captain Paradigm: Eternal Conflux series.And I was wondering if you'd like to come down with to the city and pick up a couple copies. After that maybe we could get some froyo and- -"
"HHHHHHAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!"
But before the poor guy could finish his question, the dreaded protective big sister gave a driving shovel hook straight to Tanner's gut, which sent him flying off the school platform about 300 meters away. Ruby recoiled in shock. When Yang punched him, she turned to her sister, and in a cheesy pose reminiscent of an advertisement for laxatives, smiling and gave a thumbs up to Ruby. The girl in red only slouched over and scowled back at the blonde.
"That was only one time." Yang replied as if she were offended.
"Out of thirty-seven." Ruby replied with a slight sneer.
"Ohhhhh." She replied having now gotten Ruby's point.
"Well now that you've explained everyone's problems, you can stop now." Said Weiss forcefully.
"Oh no." Yang said boisterously, "Don't think we're out of the forest of blondes yet."
"Don't go there Yang." Blake said slightly more forcefully then Weiss.
"We now move on to our final victim of this evenings Yang Ring…"
"Stop it, Yang." Ren replied as angrily as the others.
"We move on to our ever lovable…"
"If you finish that sentence, I will kill you." Replied Ruby.
"Yet ever dorkable…"
"YANG!" Everyone shouted.
"Vomit Boy." Angry silence was held for Yang from everyone at the table upon mention of that name. Except for one that is.
"Come guys, it's not that big a deal." Jaune said to break the tension. "Let's just relax, ok? I can take it. So, uh… What do you got Yang?"
"You sir, have an extreme case of dork syndrome and you are practically drowning in pussy repellant."
"Objection!" Weiss said with slamming her side of the table with her palm.
"Retracted." The taller girl replied with a raised hand of confirmation while still staring intently at Jaune.
"... What?" The knight replied.
"I came up with a system in which whenever Yang says something too offensive, I object and she has to retract what she said in exchange for… favors." She darting her eyes back and forth once at the end of her sentence.
"And you wait until now to use that?" Ruby expressed with her hands reaching out in disbelief as she noticed Blake and Ren facepalming.
"When she points out our problems, that's one thing." Weiss explained pointing upwards. "When she talks about Jaune's problems, that is taking it too far." She explained very seriously. "Besides I'm an ice queen and that's what I do."
A small moment of pause was held by the party.
"Yes, I just used that. Now it's ruined for all of you, so ha!" The ex-heiress declared before taking a sip of coffee.
Yang looked back at Jaune when all eyes shifted back to him.
"As I was saying, your case of absolute dork syndrome is so strong that you were babied by your older sisters and you're the oldest one out of all of us here." Stares came from the rest of the group as Yang was seeming to deconstruct Jaune before everyone and the Deity Brothers.
"Okay, so it's covered." Said Blake. "Anything else you want to add? No? Fantastic, you can stop now" She spoke out forcefully.
"I'm not done yet." Replied Yang. "But once I'm done, Jaune will have to get a vacuum to suck up all the Yang from every crevices of his armor."
"Objection!" Weiss quickly responded.
"Retracted." Yang responded.
"What kind of favors is she- -"
"I don't wanna talk about it!" Weiss responded hastily to Ren.
"And then we go to the most tragic fact of all. Your body."
"Objection!"
"Not retracting this one Weiss, keep your sex favors."
"YANG!"
"I want to say this one."
"Oh my…" Ren quickly muttered, his eyes as wide as one of Ember Celica's shells.
"The most tragic fact of all is that you have the type of body that makes girls like me drown themselves at night thinking about it." Yang said in a voice portraying tragedy. "I mean seriously Jaune you are…one of the ideals of men, and yet you can't get a girlfriend. Really, its's weirding me out how incompetent to girls you are."
"I did get a girl once." Jaune said half somberly-half calm. "Pyrrha, right before she got killed. She admitted she loved me after we figured Ozpin got killed by Cinder. She told me she was going up Beacon tower to fight Cinder, I said don't go, she kissed me, shoved me into a locker, and jetted me off to somewhere in the city. And you all know the rest from there."
Silence was the only voice at the table as the truth of that most unfortunate came to light. A solid half minute of this silence was kept. The Rest of the group looked at Yang waiting to see what she would say.
"Well… you gotta…I mean that's… I… I actually have no response to this."
Her teammates had either facepalmed with both hands or sadly looked down at the table.
Jaune didn't say anything when he got up and pulled his hood up and walked outside of the restaurant.
Yang was speechless. What started out as a cutesy game about deconstructing her friends and their love lives, or lack thereof for some had been taken too far.
"Smooth Yang." Said Ruby in slight disgust.
"Shut up." Yang replied with recognition that she had in fact done wrong.
"Jaune, wait!" She said as she stood up and went through the door.
"So, wait… you trade Yang's tact, in return for sex?" Blake asked in slight shock.
"Shut up." Weiss replied half embarrassed and half regretfully.
Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Ren looked at each other with uncertainty. It was a moment of inconvenience…
"Wah, pizza!"
…At least, not counting from when Nora was roused awake by yet another food-related dream.
Yang ran out of the restaurant with a look of worry.
"Jaune!" She shouted with a slight tremble. Her left hand started to shake as she grabbed it with her eyes misting up.
"Damn it, not now!" She muttered upon getting a grasp on her tremor.
She had no idea what he had truly been dealing with after the fall of Beacon. It was at this moment Yang realized something: She done fucked up.
She darted her head back and forth to see a figure that looked like him go into a small alley to the right of the restaurant. She chased after this figure shouting her friend's name. All she wanted to do was apologize to him for what she had said. She looked into the alley at the figure in the trench coat and started her apology.
"Jaune?"
The figure did not turn to see her as she walked forward.
"Jaune, I am so sorry for what I said."
The figure still yet did not respond to Yang's comments.
"I didn't mean to hurt you like that. I had no idea about you and Pyrrha."
Yet still nothing.
"Jaune, are you ok? Did you even hear me?" As she said this, the figure turned. And as he turned, his face was revealed.
It was Adam.
Yang, upon seeing this face, screamed as if seeing a butcher's freezer filled with hanging corpses.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"
But just as Yang was recoiling in horror at the man who had mutilated her in more ways than one, a familiar voice came from the terrorist.
A small laugh.
Yang looked with skepticism as she thought she recognized this laugh. This wasn't the sneering son of a bitch who got his kicks from murdering humans and Faunus. As it grew, she realized who was truly standing before her.
It was Jaune dressed up as Adam.
"Jaune?!" she asked with a slight amount of shock.
He took his mask off to reveal his true face. Yang's face turned from one of shock and fear to one of anger and annoyance.
Yang snapped.
She proceeded to punch Jaune in the shoulder multiple times and shouted obscenities that could be heard down the block.
"You asshole! Complete asshole!"
Jaune continued laughing his ass off as Yang was pounding his chest like an enraged Berengel.
"Why would you do that?!" She barked after ceasing her slamming.
Jaune managed to stop laughing to let out a response.
"Well, one: To get back at you for that game earlier. Two: I wanted to point out your reasons for not having a boyfriend. And Three: We've actually been planning this for months." He said, wiping a tear from his eye at how hard he was laughing earlier.
She stepped backwards as her jaw dropped.
"Months?!"
"Yeah."
"Why?!" She demanded.
He had paused as he dropped his smart-ass grin when his baby blue eyes had darted to the side.
"…You need a minute?"
The other blonde had leaned against the brick wall and huffed as she crossed her arms.
"Not at all. Proceed, Mr. Arc."
"We were planning this because, Yang, you can be a major jerk sometimes, and we wanted to get revenge on you."
"Ah come on, I'm not that bad…am I?"
Jaune then regales Yang with several stories about pranks or jokes that Yang has played on the group from Beacon to now.
First was when she got Weiss stuck to the cafeteria floor when she was baiting her with double pocket organization folders.
Second, she tricked Blake into a swimming pool filled with Tuna, filmed that and put it on Dust Tube.
Third, when she baited Ruby with cookies and comic books into the science lab to be used in a wind tunnel experiment.
And fourth, the time when she got Jaune, Ren, and Nora tied up and hanging from Beacon tower for an entire weekend.
Oh yeah. And fifth, the time when she filled the teacher's lounge with macaroni and cheese and blamed it on Teams RWBY and JNPR. Herself withstanding of course.
"So, I played a few pranks. That's not that bad."
"We were in detention for a MONTH, for the mac and cheese prank of yours."
"Alright, that one was a little mean. But why did you go this far? And furthermore, where did you get that costume?"
"We went this far as a sort of catchall for all the shit that you've done. And the costume…"
"Hey, you!" Shouted a man walking down the alley. To the blondes both turned at the sound of his voice.
"Is that my coat?"
"Oh yeah! Sorry." Jaune took the coat off, and then handed it to the guy. "Sorry, sir. I was playing a prank on her."
The pedestrian took his coat and walked away with a look on his face that only said one thing: "Weirdos."
"And as for the rest of the costume, Blake lead the design, Weiss took care of the details, and the rest of us put it together."
After about ten seconds of silence, Yang had come to a conclusion.
"Ok, I deserved that."
"Exactly. So, what have you learned about your flaws that can't get you boyfriend?"
"I screw with other people lives too much, I make too many puns, and in general I can be a massive ass sometimes."
"Also, you commit way too many acts of sexual harassment…apparently."
Yang nodded.
"That too."
"Well it looks like you have learned your lesson." Said Jaune after a yet another pause.
"Yeah." She said with a smile.
The two friends shared a hug for about a second and went back inside the restaurant.
"I'm starting to worry about them." Said Weiss.
Ruby looked up from her Scroll.
"It'll be fine. We just gotta let them work it out."
Blake said nothing as she drummed her fingers on the table, thinking about how her partner didn't think her critique of Jaune through. Her thoughts were interrupted as her extra ears had turned left to pick up on the sound of a door opening as it tripped the bell hanged on its frame.
"Guys!" The ninja pointed out as the others turned their heads to see Jaune and Yang talking rather than arguing about her joke earlier.
"Sorry we're late." Yang said with a nod. "Our pizza is still warm, right?"
Ren's left eye squinted in confusion.
"Yeah…?" He uttered. "Nora hasn't tried to swipe any. Like at the end of the first semester."
"Heeeey!"
They sat back down to see their friends' skeptical expressions.
"What?" Said Jaune.
Ruby attempted to say something, but Weiss commented instead.
"I'm sorry, weren't you guys fighting earlier?"
"Why would we be? We managed to talk it out, and even pulled off the scheme…Blake." He said with a wink.
"Scheme? What do…Jaune, tell me you got that on camera." She replied with a chuckle that didn't seem at all like 'classic her.'
The knight had drawn his Scroll from his hoodie pocket and waved it with a whistle and click of the tongue as he pushed the expand button on it, increasing the resolution of the screen and hitting the play button showing Yang's hysterical reaction to seeing him in a cosplay of Adam's getup.
Oh, boy… Yang thought.
In a moment that also didn't seem like 'classic her,' For either of them, Blake and Weiss looked at each other and snickered in an attempt to not burst out laughing.
No chance.
The W and B in their Team's name had erupted with guffawing while their boss had cringed in her sister's direction at the footage of seeing her get humiliated on the recording.
"I don't know, Rubes. I don't know how I managed to walk into that one." She said as she held her hands up in defeat.
"Well, you kinda had it coming." Ruby said from the side of her mouth.
"Yep."
After the snow queen and assassin had recovered from their minute-long laughing fit, Blake cleared her throat and wiped a tear from her eye.
"Oh…Jaune. That was perfect."
"Indeed." Said Weiss after biting her lip to compose herself.
"We hope you've learned your lesson, Yang." Said Ren.
"Don't worry, I did." She replied. "I'm too much of a troll, I make too many puns, and I can be kind of a jerk most of the time."
The other heroes – sans the blondes - nodded.
"And?" Said Weiss.
"And I was schooled as to why I can't get a lover."
"And?" Said Weiss again.
Yang rolled her eyes.
"And I tend to sexually harass people."
With the conflict of the evening settled, the seven of them were about to return to their pizza.
Moments later, the door to the restaurant opened again as Ruby turned to see Oscar walk up to her.
"Hey guys." He said with a wave. "Ruby, you got a minute?"
"Uh. Sure, Oscar." She said with uncertainty. "What's up?"
"I don't wanna interrupt your dinner, but, well, Qrow was caught hitting on a barista at the café down the street and tried to smuggle a drink in."
"You can't be serious." She said.
"Yeah, afraid so. I can take care of it if you want. I know you're busy here."
Ruby groaned in response to hearing about Qrow's latest attempt at inebriation and pulled out her Scroll to call her.
"Okay, I'm gonna call him and see if he- -"
"No no no no no." He said. "I'll see to…him…"
He stopped to notice their hands reaching for the Scroll as they made contact. Ruby stopped and looked into Oscar's eyes, as his also met hers. There was about 10 seconds of pause as everyone else looked at each other with curious faces.
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom really quick." He quickly spoke.
"Then I'll go help you with Qrow." She finally said.
"Yeah. I'll be right back."
"I'll wait here for you."
Oscar then turned and went to the men's room, as Ruby watched him walk in that direction as something caught her interest and she was sneaking a peak.
"Like what you see, little sister?" Yang said in her ear.
Ruby then snapped out of her gaze.
"I…have no idea what you're talking about."
"Come on…you like him." Weiss teased.
"NO! No, I do not!"
"Then why were you starring at his butt?" Blake asked.
Ruby could only look forward with eyes wide as a doll at that question, as it was now her turn to blush.
Nora then chimed in, sounding a sly as ever.
"Sounds like someone wants a taste of what that farm boy's been growing."
Ruby slammed her head on the table in shock and embarrassment.
"You guys are the worst." She muttered as everyone started laughing.
Despite all the troubles and insanity, it was still a great evening.
