A/N : So this is an updated version of my previous story "A Step In The Right Direction". I changed the beginning to better suit a multi-chaptered fic because honestly, you gotta admit, my OC was dayuum OP. (He's still OP at the moment, gotta admit that too. Made of titanium or somefin.)Fresh from editing and revision my mind needs a rest, so if you catch any mistakes or awkward sentences, chances are I will too later on. Don't worry though, the OC should become a normal human bean later on (Like chapter 4-ish.)
Neo'll be introduced later in the story, with Yang being the main focus in the beginning.
Enjoy Between Gold and Icecream!
"So... Let me get this right; You want to buy...a dress?" Jaune's friend Pug asked, wiping his sweaty brow.
"Yep." Jaune said with a pop.
"Why exactly...?" Pug raised an eyebrow, pushing his raven hair to one side of his face. Golden streaks ran through his hair, places his hair dye missed. The way his hair was styled reminded Jaune of Ruby's hair.
"I told Pyrrha that if she didn't get a date to the dance, I'd wear a dress." Jaune pointed a thumb at his chest and smiled weakly.
"... And you're serious about that?"
"An Arc never backs down on his word."
"Ok..." Pug nodded and blinked his steel gray eyes slowly, processing what Jaune had just told him. "Well, I'm going to shower and change, and tell Yang where I'm going." Pug headed for the locker rooms."
"Alright, I can wait here. W-wait! Don't tell Yang! I'll be a complete laughingstock." Jaune shouted to his friend. Pug stuck a thumbs up in the air.
Jaune waited a few minutes, playing with the strings of his black hoodie. Pug drank a cold water bottle as he came back. He was wearing a gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Together they left the gym, Pug leading the way down the street.
It was sunny in Vale, small clouds rolled along in the blue sky. A light wind whispering along sent goosebumps along his arm. They turned left, down the street and walked through the crowd citizens.
Marcia's Dresses and Beyond. Jaune never would have thought he was going to buy a dress for himself. His sisters came here sometimes, usually for formal events or marriages. It reeked of perfume inside, dresses of all shapes and sizes, styles and appearances hung from the racks.
The store clerk named Marcia smiled. "How can I help you... Gentlemen?" She was a middle aged woman with graying brown hair. Her teal eyes stared at them oddly, like they were a bunch of crooks.
"Just helping my friend get a dress for his date." Pug coolly played off. Jaune silently breathed a sigh of relief.
Marcia beamed. "What size is she? It would be better if she came in, that way I can tailor the dress to fit her perfectly!"
"Coincidentally, she's the same size and body stature of this- charming young man here. We can tailor it on him." Pug smirked, nudging Jaune with his elbow.
They spent a good three to four hours trying on dresses. Many colors schemes, dress styles went by. The two boys were about experienced in fashion as flamingo using a gun. Juane and Pug settled for a frilly white strapless dress, it complemented the white armor that Jaune usually wore.
As they walked to the airship, Pug joked that he could join the ranks of Ruby and Weiss with his own battle skirt.
"Heh, I'm sure Pyrrha will find a date." Pug patted Jaune on the back.
Pug smiled, reliving that moment in his head.
His gray eyes stared through the crosshair of his sniper rifle. He focused the single red dot on a warehouse, tinted silvery blue from the moon. With the moon's light he could see two sentries outside of the gate doors, just black shadows from this distance. He couldn't make out their appearances. The dot hovered over their heads, seeming to decide which one to take out first.
His earpiece crackled to life, Professor Bourbon's voice gruff and alcoholic voice sounding from it.
"Mr. Vulken, please take care not to notify everyone inside of the warehouse of our presence. We're to retrieve the package like a ghost; no alarms."
Team Peppermint, or PPMT for short, sat behind the fences surrounding the dockside. They waited for him to take out the sentries before moving into the warehouse and searching for the package. Pug was perched up in a building directly west of the warehouse, far away and out of sight.
Primrose, their leader and Pug's partner, hissed at him.
"Hurry up and take the shot."
Primrose Minerva was the leader of Team Peppermint. Primrose- or Prim for short- was generally very bossy and snappy to her teammates, but she also had a softer side that she rarely showed. Everything about her was pink. She had light pink hair tied into two small buns at the back of her head, a pale complexion, and light pink eyes. Her parasol hung from her hips, a pink battle skirt donned just for the moment.
Pug inhaled and exhaled slowly, steadying the crosshair over a sentry's head. With an audible pop the first sentry went down. The second pop was much louder, but it did the job and killed the second sentry. The barrel of his mechanized sniper rifle revolver (MSRR) was smoking, the suppressor he had bought twisted and broken. He unscrewed the hot steel cylinder with a gloved hand and tossed it to the ground.
His earpiece crackled to life again, Primrose's irritated voice coming though.
"What happened to your silencer!? That was close, they could have heard you!"
"It broke. Cheap thing was selling for 1300 lien, sorry... Guess that's what I get for calling my weapon Bad Luck." Pug spoke lowly into his receiver, "Either way, no one noticed a thing. Move in, you're clear."
Through the scope, he watched Professor Bourbon cut the wires on the fence and crawl though. Primrose followed after him. Pug laughed silently as she fumbled to get her parasol through the small hole. Malva Lares helped her by using her weapon, Tars Iniquia, to cut a larger hole into the fence.
Malva Lares was a faunus, a cat faunus. Her purple hair was drawn into a ponytail, her feline ears visible. Those ears were sharply accentuated with her elliptical emerald eyes, which could probably see in the dark. She returned Tars Iniquia to her back. It was a one edged sword, almost resembling a katana. The other edge was modified to become an assault rifle, the trigger and mag located at the hilt. Malva generally exhibited a smart, yet caring personality, like now for example, as she helped her half brother Thime through the fence.
"C'mon, take my hand." Her voice rang in Pug's ear, "Ugh! When'd you get so fat Thime!"
"It's not fat!" Thime snarled, " It's this stupid over sized hoodie I bought in Vale!"
Thime was a faunus too, a wolf faunus with a short temper for anything that crosses him. Neatly cut green hair was spiked up slightly from the mild application of gel. It covered one of his wolf ears, the other one listening intently for any sounds. His white hoodie was most definitely oversized, like really oversized. White fur wrapped around his hands, wolf medallions hanging from his wrists. His weapon, Lars Virtua, were medallions that transformed his hands into mechanized wolf heads frozen forever in a snarl.
Professor Bourbon knelt over the assassinated bodies, his long trench coat covering his legs. It made him look like an large pine cone.
"These sentries don't look like the White Fang." The professor said, examining the bodies.
"How? You sure old guy?" Prim asked.
"Yes, see, no masks, no faunus features, and no insignia." Professor Bourbon turned the body over, "Wait, here it is. Upper left shoulder, a felt badge with the red wolf on it... That's odd. I never heard of humans rallying with the White Fang. Considering what the White Fang aims to achieve..."
"Door!" Malva hissed, drawing Tars Iniquia. She dispatched the patrolling guard and hid his body behind a dumpster.
Professor Bourbon stood up, brushing his hands off. "This is really quite odd. No matter, on with the mission. Mr. Vulken, be prepared to cover us if things don't go our way."
"Roger. Prim? "
"Yeah?" She replied, eyeing his position.
"Be careful." Pug said. Prim snorted and laughed.
They disappeared into the warehouse. Pug hovered his sniper rifle around the length of the dockyard. Large metal storage crates were placed around the area of the docks, from Pug's position it looked like a maze. The only clearing was by the water, where a single bullhead could land.
He fingered a button that was pinned to his dark yellow shirt, his caramel jacket covering it just slightly. It was a black button with a yellow flaming heart as the decal. His friend Yang gave it to him, to commemorate five years of being best friends. Pug wondered how she was doing on her mission. Surely it would be an easy task, Team RWBY proved to be an extremely lucky team with some of the best fighting techniques he has ever seen.
And yet he still worried, in the back of his mind he couldn't shake off the feeling that something bad was going to wavered into his mind as he put his arms in auto pilot mode, scanning the area around the warehouse for threats.
A car drove past a group of students sitting outside of a bakery, their eyes poured over textbooks. Pencils were in their hands, scribbling notes and writing answers on their papers.
"So what's the answer for number thirteen? I'm stuck on that one." Jaune said as he took a bite into a muffin.
"I got that you should analyze the situation before engaging." Pug sipped his tea, a sweet yet bitter mix.
"Really?" Pyrrha exchanged a look with Pug, her green eyes looking at him quizzically. "I thought it said in the textbook that when a group of Nevermore was sighted, you only intervene when necessary. Main focus should be not to agitate them."
"Argh, pooooooooo..." Ruby huffed, resting her head on her textbook.
"Didn't get the answer? Don't worry, same here." Jaune smiled and finished his muffin.
"Noooo, I just don't get this." She stared at him with her silver eyes. "Fighting Grimm is easy, but they make it sooo complicated."
"Haha, I feel you." Pug laughed, sipping his tea again. "C'mon, you want more snacks? I'll get you one."
"Yes pleease!"
"We'll be fat if we keep doing this on a daily basis..." Pyrrha muttered, patting her stomach.
"Ooh, get one for me too?" Jaune spoke, wiping his mouth and taking a swig from his drink
"Roger that smooth talker." Pug said as he left, waving finger guns at Jaune. Pyrrha giggled and returned to her textbook.
Pug came back with a handful of pastries for Jaune, Pyrrha, and him. For Ruby, he bought a strawberry milkshake and a jammed filled treat. She ate and slurped her shake happily as poured over her textbook again. Pyrrha helped herself to one and Jaune eagerly grabbed another as he flipped his textbook page.
"Pyrrha, we can always overtrain Jaune here if we want to lose weight." Pug himself grabbed one and bit into it's jam filled interior.
The earpiece cracked to life again, a loud whirring emanating in his ears. Pug tensed his toes, the sound much too loud for his left ear to handle. He braced through it, trying to listen to anything that might be coming from the whirring. A garbled noise came, drowned out by the static that seemed to fill Pug's head.
"... Help!" It called in a distorted voice. " … P! … In! … Ken! … Help!... Dang … Se..."
The voice spoke gibberish. Pug whipped his rifle to point at an opening door from the warehouse. He instantly recognized Primrose's two light pink buns as she ran out. In her hands was a solid white briefcase, smeared with blood.
The alarm rang out, a robotic whine that repeated endlessly. From farther in the docks, doors opened and he saw the white masks belonging to the White Fang. They had weapons in their hands as they made their way to Team PPMT down below.
Pug stared in silent horror as Thime and Malva dragged a body out of the warehouse together. It was Professor Bourbon, or, whatever was left of him. The half siblings were covered in blood as they followed behind Prim.
"Pugon! Cover fire, we've been compromised!" Prim yelled into her receiver.
Pug turned the cylinder above his fingers. A carbon copy of the cylinder on Weiss's Myrtenaster, it clicked as it settled upon ice Dust. Running down the length of the storage crates was a katana wielding White Fang, he was going to run into Prim at the T intersection.
He pulled the trigger and felt the pressure in his ears skyrocket. The explosion came much later, the katana wielding man frozen and dead with a clean shot in the head. Pug's ears rang as he scanned the area around his team, small explosions coming from the end of Bad Luck.
He watched Prim run along the long lengths of walls that were large metal storage crates stacked on top of one another. The rest of her team and Professor Bourbon were behind her. She turned left and collided with a man. The White Fang member raised his pistol, only to receive a frozen head as a bullet penetrated his skull.
She sighed in relief and continued running.
One by one White Fang members dropped. Pug effectively killed them as they came, more came and tripped over the bodies of the fallen. This time when he pulled the trigger, nothing came out. It was empty. Pug released the mag and inserted another one like he practiced. He pulled the bolt within two seconds of being empty and fired at the one he had missed.
Team PPMT found themselves at the clearing beside the water. They were surrounded by the oncoming trickle of masked fighters. Malva held them off the best she could with one arm, popping and shooting any that came behind her.
They were trapped.
Even Pug's exceptional marksmanship couldn't save them from the torrents of fighters that rose behind the dead. He fired again and nailed a brute, freezing him, stopping him from overwhelming his team.
"Guys? The briefcase is ticking!?" Prim shouted, her voice quavering with panic.
"Get to the water! I'll hold them back." Malva yelled back.
"What's in this thing!?" Prim knelt on the ground and opened the brief case, then uttered a low moan, "Oh no..."
Pug focused on her position as Prim took steps back. He could make out the vivid red of a countdown clock. It was a set up, the briefcase was a ticking time bomb.
"Run!" Prim shouted, helping her team move Bourbon to the water. "Pugon, we've got to go! Mission failure! Mission failure!"
Pug transformed his mechanized sniper rifle into a small hand revolver. He pulled the chamber down and loaded a single bullet into the slot. It shut with a click and he pulled the hammer down just as Prim shouted something.
"Meet us at the airshi-" Static filled his ears.
The building he was in rattled and shook. Pug ran back to the window and was blinded by the light that shined from the docks. The explosion reached his ears shortly after as he stared at where his team used to be. They could have made it to the water, but he didn't recall hearing splash before the static.
Pug pulled out his Scroll and looked at the Aura gauges of his teammates. They were empty, precisely at zero. It could be interference, he assured himself. Pug waited with Bad Luck back into it's sniper rifle form, he wanted to be sure they were alive. It shouldn't have taken them more than five minutes to reach the shore. He waited ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and then half an hour. No one was appeared from the water, dripping wet with a mauled professor in their arms. He checked his Scroll again. The same thing greeted his eyes, everyone's Aura gauge was empty except his, which was full and bright green.
Something moved behind him. A flash of white light accompanying the movement.
Pug turned and saw a shadow in the small room he was in. He twisted and fired, the explosion lighting up the room. The bullet sank into the wall beside a tri-colored haired girl. Who smirked at him with dark eyes. Pug reloaded and fired again, the mysterious woman dodging his bullets from point blank range.
In her hands was an umbrella, much resembling Prim's parasol. She lunged forward and thrust with her umbrella. With a sharp clank it bounced off of Bad Luck. They fought against each other in the small room, Pug forced to block her every move and waste bullets into the wall.
She pulled a low sweep and knocked him flat on the floor. Pug pushed himself up and howled, her heel slamming in his hand. She lifted her foot and brought it down again, twisting her foot and digging her heel into his hand. With her other foot, she sharply kicked him at the base of his spine, maniacally smiling when she heard something snap.
With sudden vigor, Pug pushed her off him, almost succeeding at knocking her off her feet, had she not hooked her umbrella around his neck and threw him down instead. With the toe of her shoe, she kicked him in the neck and watched as he spluttered and rolled out of the way. Pug got up and wielded Bad Luck like a club.
The woman was a seriously skilled fighter to be able to move that swiftly around. His feelings were confirmed when she high kicked him in the chin and spun her umbrella around.
The tip of the umbrella was sharp and nicked his cheek. Pug drew back and felt his cheek, his hand speckled in blood. The woman silently laughed to herself. Pug twisted and tried clubbing her head, but faster than he could recognize. A loud snap was heard and he felt the gut wrenching pain of something in his gut.
The woman had snapped his rifle with her heel and pirouetted around him in less than a second. A narrow and long blade was embedded in his stomach, Pug stared shakily at the blood covered tip that was level with his nose. He felt the chilling movement of air beside his ear as the woman giggled right beside him.
She drew her sword out with a long shhling and pushed him against the window. Pug's world span as he tried to focus on anything but the pain welling in his stomach. Deep breaths, deep breathes. The woman leaned closer to him, somehow sexually pleased by his pain. She forced him to look into her eyes, colored black from the darkness, with a finger pushing his chin up. Pug felt the firm pressure of her lips as she pecked him on his own.
I died by the hands of a sadist, great.
He felt weightless as she threw him from the building. His life flashed before his eyes, most notably the dance.
The ballroom was bustling with students as they were hand in hand, slow dancing their way closer to their dance partners. Then of course you had the oddballs who did their own thing, dancing to their own beat... Like Team JNPR, who, led by Jaune in a frilly white dress, pulled off an amazing dance stunt. It made the three of them laugh; Ruby, Yang, and him, despite how awkward they felt when Jaune winked at them.
Ruby pointed out Weiss's position. She was enjoying a dance- if you could call it that- with Neptune. They laughed and for the first time in awhile, Pug saw that Weiss was blushing. Not too far from them, by the punch bowl, stood Sun and Blake. They looked to enjoy themselves as they initiated in a cheerful conversation.
By Yang's request, the three of them made their way back to the entrance. Along the way down the stairs, Pug asked Yang a question- a rather important question.
"Hey Yang?"
She turned around, looking absolutely stunning in her white dress. Yang raised an eyebrow, her lilac eyes looking at his with wonderment.
"Do you... Have a dance for-"
"I danced with Blake earlier. Why do you ask?"
Ruby snickered and winked from behind Yang, she tip toed out. Pug felt the heat rise up to his cheeks, feeling all the more uncomfortable in his suit.
"How about me and you..." He offered Yang a hand. "Dance for... a bit?"
It took a moment before it sank in for Yang. She blushed, looking out at the crowd of students on the dance floor. With sudden gusto, she took his hand and pulled him closer. Pug was only a head taller than her. And they danced. They slow danced their way back to the entrance, so Yang could continue her duties as a hostess.
Steel gray eyes intensely stared at lilac eyes, whom stared back with the same amount of intensity. Pug's heart was beating out of his chest. Everything was hot, the room was scorching. Pug was sure his suit was soaked from his sweating.
Eventually they slowed down and just cradled each other. Yang rested her head on Pug's shoulder, her long golden hair in his face. They slowly spun around in a circle, enjoying the moment to the fullest.
"That was nice Goldilocks, I enjoyed it." Yang whispered into his ears.
"Me too, Blondie."
"Mmm." Yang's heart was beating out of her chest too. She was worried that Pug might have felt her chest thumping. She looked him in the eyes.
"I-I dunno how I feel about you." Yang said as she pushed him away slightly. "I mean, I-I like you- as a friend. You're nice, and cool, and you get my jokes, but... I don't know. I don't know how I feel about this."
"It's fine if you want to be just friends, I don't mind."
"But," Yang looked at her heels. It made her taller, her forehead reaching Pug's nose. "What if I don't want to be just friends?"
"I'm not pressuring you," Pug smiled.
"Promise me something, Goldilocks."
"Sure, lay it on me."
"Promise me you'll challenge me to Remnant : The Game this weekend."
"I promise, Blondie, and I'll win too."
Yang looked up, a sudden ferocity in her eyes. "Another dance?" She asked, or rather demanded.
They interlocked fingers and danced again. After the dance they spent a long time cuddling in each other's arms.