Jaune and Pyhrra were walking towards their dorm room drenched in sweat and out of breath. They had been doing their usual training session and she was offering tips and pointers to help him improve.
"Even though the shield's primary purpose is for defense, you have to remember you can use it offensively as well." Jaune was trying to memorize her teachings, to make them second nature in a real world scenario. "A shield bash can knock your opponent off-balance and open for a strike."
Jaune pulled out his scroll to unlock the door. When he has about to reach for the lock Pyhrra grabbed his wrist. He turned to question her, but she was holding a finger over her mouth. She nodded towards the door and Jaune noticed the wood near the latch had been scraped as if somebody had picked the lock. They readied their weapons, and with a silent countdown, Jaune and Pyhrra barged into the room.
They scanned the room and were surprised to find a man in a dark green suit standing at the window looking out it. "Professor Ozpin?"
"Ah Mister Arc and Miss Nikos. What a pleasure please do come in and take seat." He gestured towards the nearest bed and sat opposite. Jaune and Pyhrra shared a confused look and followed their instructor's request.
"What are you doing here sir?" Jaune was trying not to sound rude asking, but it needed to be said.
"I need you two for a mission."
"So why did you break in?" Pyhrra was confused of the unusual arrangement, and from Jaune's expression he was too. "Why not just contact us on our scrolls?"
"Before I can answer that question I need it to be clear that I can not give up any further information unless you accept this mission."
"Are you sure you want me to go, I mean there are a plethora of other students more qualified than me." Jaune was sure anybody would be better than him.
"No Mister Arc, you and Miss Nikos are the most qualified for this assignment."
"If you're absolutely sure I am good enough, I guess we can do it."
"It's a yes or no question."
"Yes we accept." Pyhrra didn't want to deal with something as trivial as Jaune's self confidence, when Ozpin obviously had such an important mission for them.
"Well, the reason for the secrecy is because." He then leaned in to whisper, "our enemies are closer than what we thought."
"Do you mean here, at beacon?" It made sense to Jaune that Beacon would become a target for those who wanted chaos, but could they ever infiltrate Beacon.
"Yes, now if we can get to the mission before..." Ozpin had taken out his scroll and noticed the time. "I'll have to explain on the way follow me." Ozpin then set a brisk pace down the hallway. "You shall be going undercover on this mission and attempting to find out about a person of interest."
The trio entered the stairwell and began their descent when Pyhrra voiced her concern, "But sir, we have no training in undercover work, and I am sure to get recognized."
Jaune, taking the steps two at a time, interjected, "Pyhrra, I know you have questions, but I am sure if you let him continue, he would be able to explain it." Pyhrra thought Jaune had a fair point there. "So professor, are we going to be getting super cool cover stories and make up that makes us look totally different." They reached the ground floor and headed out a rear entrance. "OOH and some awesome spy gadgets."
"Mister Arc that is absurd." She gave Jaune a look that silently told him to be serious. "You wouldn't be able to remember your false identities." Both students gave Ozpin a look of shock.
"Sir wouldn't that defeat the purpose of undercover work?"
They reached their destination at the air docks and the group stopped as Ozpin finished explaining. "Well you see... nobody expects you to be doing intelligence gathering without a fake identity. Anyways this airship will take you to your mission and here is the documentation you'll need and your scrolls have the rest of the details you need. Now off you go." Ozpin was frantically shoving the papers in their hands and shoving them on board. "Take off now." He commanded to the pilot. "Good luck!" Ozpin shouted as the doors closed.
Jaune and Pyhrra sat down in the pair of seats in the cabin. Jaune began to sort through the papers in his hand. "Umm, I think he gave us the wrong papers."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well, these are tickets for a cruise."
"A cruise?" Pyhrra leaned in to see if Jaune was looking at it correctly. Yep they were definitely cruise tickets, but it wasn't a mistake their names were on the tickets. "Our names are on the tickets."
"At least it will be kind of like a vacation you know."
"We will be on a mission, we won't have time to relax."
"Yeah, I guess."
Jaune was rather disappointed at the sound of that, but Pyhrra gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder and offered, "Hey we can still take a long weekend and do a vacation then." They both smiled at the thought.
Ozpin was walking back through Beacon's hallways when Glynda approached him. "Professor Ozpin, there was an unscheduled airship leaving the school's air docks a few minutes ago. I was unable to communicate with them or check its-"
"Glynda don't worry about it, I was the one who sent it off."
"Why didn't you tell me about this sir?"
"You were busy with other things. I didn't want to concern you with such affairs."
"You sent me to pick you up some more coffee, I would hardly call that busy."
"No task is too small to keep this school running at its top."
"It is when you send somebody overqualified, I mean you could have sent any-." Glynda paused for a moment letting the gears turn in her head. "Are you shipping students again?"
"Don't be absurd Gylnda." She let out a sigh of relief. "They're already shipped, I am just speeding up the process."
"Tell me which students and where you sent them." Glynda did not want to play this game again.
"It's too late, I sent them on a wild goose chase with no way to contact Beacon." Unfortunately Ozpin did want to play the game.
Pyhrra and Jaune looked over the details of their 'mission' and were in the process of boarding the ship.
"Jaune are you sure this information is reliable?"
"Of course, Ozpin is the headmaster. He always knows what he's doing."
"But I don't think any parent would ever name their child something like this."
"Pyhrra you shouldn't be so harsh, I am sure," Jaune looked back at the name written on the sheet to make sure he would say it correctly, "Isaac Chris Wiener had a hard time growing up."
"But it's a name a ten year old makes up to play pranks."
"Maybe the parents were immature,"
Jaune and Pyhrra rushed through security and boarded the ship. Once they mad it onto the ship and into the main atrium they both stopped. In the lobby was a large banner that read 'Welcome Aboard The Couples Cruise'.
"Why didn't Ozpin tell us about this?!" Pyhrra gestured toward the banner to make sure Jaune couldn't confuse what she meant.
"He did seem rushed to try and get us started and it was a detail that really isn't important to the mission."
"But he could have put it in our notes, on the tickets, or simply take the two seconds to tell us it." Pyhrra was on the verge of hyperventilating with this last statement.
"Pyhhra calm down, take slow deep breaths." Jaune put a hand on her shoulder to attempt to soothe her, but she jumped at Jaune's touch. "Is there something wrong?"
"Just give me a minute." She walked down one of the many hallways branching off to cool down. Jaune seeing nothing better to do went to the desk to get the room keys.
Pyhrra found an empty blue themed sitting room. She didn't know what to think of all of this. It felt like some greater being had purposely made this mission to try and get her and Jaune together. She wasn't sure if Jaune was having similar feelings or if he even recognized that they could easily be mistaken for a couple. What if somebody told a news organization? It would be everywhere, and what if Jaune didn't want to be around her out of embarrassment? All of this could be avoided so long as they didn't do a bunch of the couple's activities. Most of them seemed like regular events with the word couple slapped on for the theme.
"Are you good?" Jaune had found her and held the room keys in his hand.
"Yeah, lets just go unpack."
"Alright."
Jaune led her into the elevator and down a couple of floors. They walked down the hallway a bit and found a room with their luggage outside.
"Do you think it's weird he packed for us." Pyhrra felt uneasy that he handled some of her clothes.
"He needed to if we were to make it."
"I suppose, but it still feels kind of creepy that he handled our underwear without our knowledge."
"Pyhrra, he's a professional not some kind of pervert."
Jaune unlocked and opened the door and both went red faced. The room, although small, was made with romantic intentions in mind. The room was mostly red, there were fake candles around the room, but most importantly there was only one bed.
"I'll sleep on the floor." Jaune wanted to do the gentleman's thing and let her have the bed.
"You don't have to."
"No, it's alright."
"Jaune your sleeping with me." They both paused for a moment and Pyhrra was looking the other way to hide her blush. "I didn't mean like-"
"Yeah I know." An awkward silence filled the air as they grabbed their luggage and moved it into their room.
They sat on opposite ends of the bed as far apart as possible. "Do you have any idea how to find this person." Pyhrra was hoping to be able to skip over her wording problem with ease.
"I don't know," Jaune was ready to start the mission that way they might get to relax at the end of it, "My only thought is if we attend as much stuff as possible and try to learn everybody's name."
"I don't have any better suggestions."
Pyhrra and Jaune changed into clothes more suited for a cruise. She was wearing khaki shorts and a maroon tank top with matching flip flops. Jaune wore a plain white tee shirt and khaki shorts and his sneakers. They were attending as many events as possible. Some were romantic in nature, like the dance class, others were regular activities with couple slapped on, like the ping pong tournament, but there was one they were dragged into.
"We're haven't even identified the man yet." Jaune was frustrated at there lack of progress.
"We didn't get a lot to go on," Pyhrra was annoyed at their progress as well, but was enjoying herself, "We just need to keep going."
"I don't know, I think we should change up our approach."
Jaune and Pyhrra were grabbed by the collar of their shirts behind the neck, "Let us go!" Jaune screamed, but they were dragged into an empty room. They were pulled into a pair of seats, but stood up to avoid being pinned down.
"What are you doing?!" Pyhrra just was ready to fight whoever kidnapped them.
"I'm helping you." A young man walked in front of them. "Now if you just sit down, we can work through your problems."
"Problems? What problems are you talking about?" Jaune started to worry this man was insane.
"You two were in disagreement, and all couples who break up disagree."
Jaune was sure this man was insane, but didn't want to trigger him to go into a completely psychotic state. "What should we do about it?" He grabbed Phyrra's hand and began to inch around the man towards the door.
"Well the first step to solving a problem is always acceptance, so we did that." He pulled out a paper for reference, " The next is to talk it out."
Jaune was slowly making progress, but was already half way to the exit. "I think we shouldn't disagree anymore, do you agree?" Jaune looked to Pyhrra and she immediately caught on.
"Yes I agree, we should not disagree."
"Wow, I never imagined it would go this quickly. I must be good." They were almost there and about to sprint away. "Carlos grab them." A large muscular man came from nowhere and wrapped them in a bear hug. "Ugh, we were making such good progress. Now we have to use the promise bracelets." Carlos dumped them back in their seats and the man connected the two with handcuffs.
"I'm tired of this" Pyhrra got up and punched both men in the face knocking them out.
"Why didn't you lead with that?"
"Well we were doing it your way and it seemed to be working." She had a good point. "Let's get the keys before they wake up." They searched the man's pockets and there were no keys.
"Maybe they're on him." Jaune motioned towards Carlos. They searched him and had the same results. "Are they in the room anywhere?!" Jaune had a bit of panic in his voice. A sweep over the room provided no keys. Jaune wanted to start pacing around the room, but he couldn't do it attached to Pyhrra. "What do we do?"
"I'm sure we could get it cut off."
Jaune looked at her with fear in his eyes, "I don't want to lose an arm over some handcuffs, I'd rather just be attached to you for the rest of my life."
Pyhrra paused and looked at him, "Did you say what I think you said?"
"I mean- Ugh I – I wouldn't mind being around you all the time."
Pyhrra blushed a light pink, "You know, I wouldn't mind it either. Although I would prefer it without the handcuffs."
They both smiled. "Does this mean we're dating?"
"Technically no since you haven't asked me on a date yet."
"Do you want to go see a movie after this is over?"
"I would love to." They walked away holding hands and completely forgetting their "mission".
In the dark room there was movement. The men were getting up. "Not exactly as planned, but it's still a success." The man removed his face to reveal Ozpin underneath. "You earned your bonus Peter."
Professor Port removed his mask as well, "How long will it be until I am paired with Glynda?"
"It will take a while, but I always come through."
