Chapter 1

The Man with No Left Side

It was a normal rainy day in Beacon. Standard procedures were carried out as they always had been at the academy: outdoor classes were cancelled, the gymnasium was split into multiple, walled-off sections for multiple classes, and Ozpin just sat in his office, lazily drinking his coffee and occasionally drifting into slumber from the rhythmic tapping of the angels tears that fell from the sky and onto the glass of his roof and window. Be it a light drizzle or a thundering hurricane, these were the procedures for all of Beacon's faculty and staff. Even if the sky let down one drop, all classes were cancelled, much to the ire of Miss Goodwitch, who saw it all as just an excuse for Ozpin to nap; not that he really needed one to do so anyways.

It was at this moment, 1:47 in the afternoon, that the final lunch group of the day was finishing up. This group consisted of the all of the first years, half of the second years, and a few third years and higher. Lunch schedules were like lion eating orders, the strongest eat first, followed by the weakest. If you wanted to eat earlier, then you had to prove yourself to be on the same level as the upper years, a task some of the students had come to know as the "Git Gud" law.

Currently sitting in their usual spot was the dynamic team duos that were teams RWBY and JNPR. Ruby Rose, the red-headed leader of team RWBY was chugging her twelfth glass of milk to prove that she wasn't a child while her white-haired heiress partner, Weiss Schnee, argued that this only proved her to be even more childish than previously thought. The "black-haired ninja babe" (as she was known as by both her peers and Yang) Blake Belladonna was reading her book while fending off her blonde partner, Yang Xiao Long, from taking whatever scraps she could. Unfortunately, Yang's persistence was as ruthless as her fighting style.

Meanwhile, sitting across the table was team JNPR, who were engaged in their own activities. Jaune Arc, the blonde knight of a leader of the team, was finishing up his chicken nuggets while lost in thought on his current plights, one being getting the affection of the ever cold heiress, another being battle strategies against the various Grimm throughout Remnant, and a third thought being a memory of his father and mother arguing on whether or not Jaune should take his onesie with him. Sitting a few seats away was Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune's red-headed partner and secret admirer, melting in her seat as Jaune ate while quietly in thought, and constantly fighting her urge to just jump him and claim him as her own. But she wouldn't. Nora Valkyrie, the bouncy and bubbly, hyperactive red-head of the team was going off on an extensive tangent on the ethics of killing sloth-like Grimm to her black-haired with a pink strip best friend and partner, Lie Ren, who sat quietly and politely gave his two cents on the matter. For Ren, it was just another rainy day in Remnant.

It was ten minutes before the bell would ring for lunch to end, giving the students five minutes to get to their next classes. Ruby, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Yang would attend Miss Goodwith's "beyond the city" survival class, while Weiss, Blake, and Nora would attend Professor Oobleck's culinary arts class. Why an academy would need a cooking class was a question everyone asked, but none had answered. In fact when asked, Professor Ozpin simply gave some half-hearted answer such as "It's part of the tradition," or "It was little Billy Wick's dying wish", despite the records holding information of neither any tradition of the sort nor any "Billy Wick".

Ren was the only one who had free time, as his class was cancelled due to the rain. He had three options. He could either read and study in the library, wander the halls aimlessly, or go back to his room to sit in silence for an hour. He chose the latter, seeing how little quiet he got from being with his childhood friend. He loved the girl to death, as a sister, but even he had his limits. It wasn't just his partner that did something to irritate him in the quiet. Jaune would endlessly, although quietly, go off on tangents to himself about this, that, or, in some rare cases, those, while Pyrrha simply sighed to herself about Jaune. Rainy days were Ren's tea and wind chimes.

Suddenly, a roar erupted across the room. Cardin Winchester, leader of team CRDL and former bully, pointed his meaty and well-muscled finger at some random student. He was far away enough for the dynamic team duos to ignore, but they thought they heard the words "why-foo" at some point. Blake continued reading, but was ashamed of herself when she saw that Yang had taken advantage of the noise to steal everyone's scraps. Ruby was guzzling her eighteenth glass of milk, while Weiss was internally questioning the ethics the cafeteria had on serving students more than the necessary amounts of servings of any food or beverage. Nora stood up before Ren gently grasped her wrist, fully knowing what her intentions were with the ex-tormenter of her leader. Pyrrha was distracted from Jaune for a moment before returning to her schedule of admiring her partner, who was still stealing glances at the issue before returning to his plate.

The near-deafening "tink" of the fork hitting the now empty plate made Jaune look down at his plate. It was like a mirror, all Jaune could see was his reflection. He looked up and saw the culprit happily munching on his meal. The blonde brawler happily munched on her stolen goods. Jaune knew it was too late now. Yang was open minded about taking food, but giving food was an entirely different matter. She wouldn't give it up for anything; not for her sister, not for her partner, and certainly not for the guy who wears onesies to bed.

"Look out!" A warning that came too late as an unopened can of soda collided with the blonde knight's head, landing on his plate, possibly as another one of the universe's giant middle fingers directed towards the knight as fell to the ground. Pyrrha gasped and moved to Jaune's side, Ren's grip loosened, and Nora had that terrifying look in her eye reserved for only one kind of person. Yang merely swallowed her food and cackled at the knight's fall, while Blake was busy calculating the direction the metal meteor came from. Ruby finished her glass and started on her twentieth while jumping over the table to check on her fellow leader. Weiss was telling Ruby to knock it off with the milk before she developed some horrible disease from it.

"Nice catch, Vomit Boy!" Yang howled with delight at the fellow blonde's pain, adding insult to injury by using her nickname for him.

"Well, what can I say?"Jaune retorted, "It was pretty easy, since it's a soft drink!" He laughed to himself as the table was dead quiet.

Weiss looked in disgust that Jaune would to Yang's level of making terrible puns. Blake looked away from her invisible schematics to stare wide-eyed at the now possibly dead Jaune. Nora giggled at Jaune's pun while Ren simply sighed. Pyrrha looked around the table for any kind of assistance.

But Ruby and Yang had the most surprising expressions. Yang looked like she was slapped in the face by someone near and dear to her as a face of pure shock and possible terror painted over her once beaming smile. Ruby dropped her glass and, as it shattered on the ground, she had a look of something worse than what Yang had at that moment: a look of pure and unadulterated panic. Yang was the first to speak up.

"D-Did you just-?" she started before the bell rang, signaling the students to move to their next class. Everyone shuffled their way out of lunch, although some had to be dragged (i.e. Yang by Ruby) due to recent events.

Meanwhile, Ren was making his way back to his room when Nora tagged along.

"Don't you have class next?" Ren questioned, fully expecting a quick reply from his partner.

"Well, I did, but Professor Oobleck said he saw the look I had in my eye and since Cardin was in my next class…"

Ren sighed. "You get to skip your class."

"Yay! Isn't that great, Renny?"

With another sigh, Ren replied.

"Yeah…fantastic."