Of warriors and teenagers
Chapter II: Breakfast madness
Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY. It belongs to Roosterteeth alone.
A few minutes later Jaune was about to enter the cafeteria. Having lost sight of Nora directly after he closed the door to his dormroom, he kept quite the pace trying to catch up with the bubbly girl.
For around a minute. Then he had to take a break, panting like someone would expect you to do after a marathon.
Way to go Jaune, some impressive improvement of skill you're showing there.
Hey, it's not like it was his fault for being tired and still pretty much exhausted after last evenings training session, but this of course didn't reduce neither the physically pain nor the blow to his manly pride. Or to whatever was left of it after being battered a dozen times by Cardin in front of the whole class or losing sparring match after sparring match against his partner.
Seeing it that way, there probably wasn't much pride left to take the blow, so no need to worry about it.
Whew, since when am I this sarcastic? That's more Ren's or Weiss' part. Seems like Nora isn't the only one to rub off on me. I wonder if I have this kind of effect on someone else as well.
At that, he paused for a second, now right in front of the cafeteria, to ponder about his last thought. Finally, he decided to hope that he didn't, since turning his friends into a bunch of akward, neck-scratching losers who would totally suck at anything even remotly close to combat presumably wasn't really desirable after all.
Opening the large double wing door with that in mind, he once again was caught by surprise this morning, as something - presumably cake - hit his face.
Jeez, what was going on with all those flying things hitting him anywhere on his body in the last few days? Beginnig with a few of the books in the library - not just one, no, he somehow managed to take five books to the head in just one bloody afternoon! The last one being the history of Remnant really got the best of him. In the end it was Blake who literally kicked him out of the library before he could destroy more of her precious books. Yeah, thank you very much for caring more about these malicious pieces of so-called "literature" than about his poor head - a dust crystal Ren tossed him during one of their team-training sessions that he didn't manage to catch in time and that send him trough the roof - again, literally - one of Nora's grenades - don't ask, just... just don't - heck, even his own shield after an unbelievably graceful fall to his rear in one of his trainig sessions with Pyrrha, not to mention Nora herself just this morning and now seemingly a piece of cake straight to the face... he didn't like where this was going at all. What was it, did he finally unlock his Semblance and it turned out to be some sort of magnet for bad luck?
He groaned at the thought before whiping the stuff off his face, only now realising that he probably just ruined his glove. Deciding to at least taste this newly aquired piece of destruction, his mood raised considerably.
"Hmm, cheesecake, at least the apocalypse will be tasty this way." was all he could murmur before a shout drew his attention to the comitter of the attack.
"Over here Jauney." Nora screamed through the all but empty cafeteria, which caused him to slowly walk towards the direction of her voice, all the while cleaning his face and inhaling the delicious cake. Since when did they have cheesecake for breakfast anyway?
His train of thought got cut short when he arrived at their usual table, since he noticed for the first time that their today's partner were already there as well.
"Morning Ruby, Yang" he greeted the respective sister.
"Good Morning Jaune" Ruby stated happily while munching on a few cookies. Five, if he counted right. At the same time. How was that even possible? And wasn't she somehow just a little too happy right now? Even for Ruby's standards, this amount of happiness in the morning seemed just downright ridiculous.
"Heyah, Lady-killer, how ya' doin?" with that, Yang drew his attention away from her little sister towards herself. He looked at her a little irritated at what she smirked.
"Heard your morning has been a little... rough?" she inquisited with a wiggle of her brow. At that, Jaune's attention finally turned towards Nora with an accusing stare. The girl in question was merely able to raise a brow at him, since she was currently busy inhaling pencakes at disturbing speed.
"Wha?" she managed to bring out, at which Jaune only made a few helpless handgestures towards her, than Yang and Ruby and lastly himself. This of course did little to lessen Nora's confusement.
"What?" she asked again, this time without at least three pancakes in her mouth. "You took like ages to get here, so I told them the story of this morning myself." she stated in her usual energetic demanour.
Jaune's eyes widened in shock at the thought of what Nora might have made out of it in her tendency to exaggerate. He got his answer the moment he looked back to Yang who gave him a shiteating grin.
It's official. I'm going to die out of embarrassment in the next five minutes.
"Yep" Yang simply stated to Jaune's confusion.
"You probably will." the brawler simply clarified, her grin still present.
"...did I actually say that out loud?" Jaune asked and received two nods at that, Nora still being to busy to actually doing as much as nod.
"What kind of story did she tell this time?" Jaune asked the two sisters, although he got a pretty good idea because of Yang's ear-to-ear grin.
Oum, save me.
"Oh, not that much of a story actually, only that she woke you up this morning by jumping on your stomach..." Yang started.
That ... doesn't even sound this bad...
"...before you went into a fight about the dominance in your bed..."
...nevermind.
"...which she of course won." Jaune got completely red, why would Nora tell them a completely normal story - well normal by the standard Jaune set when Nora was around - in a way that you just had to misinterpret it. And to Yang of all people.
"Well, let me tell you that's not at all what ha..." he tried to reason but was cut short by the blonde.
"Before Pyrrha and Ren woke up because of your little fight..."
Oh please, no.
"...and Nora decided to ... spread the fun a little bit." and just as he thought he couldn't get any redder, he did, every cherry would look pale compared with him right now. He started to stutter a response but the brawling demon wasn't finished yet.
"And after she succesfully ... dominanted Pyrrha and Ren she managed to stop you in your attempt to escape into the bathroom and..."
"S-s-stop it." Jaune all but shouted to stop this Oum-forsaken girl from completely ruining his mental image of his team.
To late bro, sorry to say so.
If possible, Yang's grin got even wider at his sudden outburst and even Ruby had to stifle a laughter. Great, now she began to laugh about her big sisters kind of humor as well. The innocent little girl he once met was probably dead. Well, innocent of course being relative, thinking that she killed hundered and hundered creatures of Grimm with her ridicolously overpowered gigantic monster-scythe (and gun, he would never forget that) way before they even met. But still...
"Well, well, Vomit-Boy" Yang once again stopped him in his thoughts. "what exactly were you thinking? All I wanted to say was that she gave you some really helpfull advice, but seeing your reaction I'm beginning to think that something else entirely happened." she concluded.
Oh come on, she actually planned for me to stop her at this part? This... This...
Jaune sighed, and remembered what Ren told him to do in situations like these, relax, don't let them get the best of you and...
"Not bad, Yang, not bad, maybe if you try making good jokes as hard as you're trying to embarrass me, someone will eventually have the gentleness to laugh about one of them."
... deliver a comeback. Yeah, it might not have been the best one, but give him a break, he did have quite a tough morning and was still struggling to master the art of quick-wittedness, so he thought he did pretty well.
This was the moment he realised just what he had done though. He looked back up to see Yang, whose eyes turned a bloody shade of red, a still shocked Ruby whispering him to run and ... a completely unfazed Nora still inhaling her pancakes.
Aw man, this is going to be the hair rampage all over again. He fearfully thought while Yang slowly got up.
At this, every single part of his brain switched into panic-mode, leaving him to shake like a branch in the storm and surely to break like one in a few seconds as well. He openend his mouth, trying to stutter out an excuse to at least lower the damage his body was about to receive in a second...
... before clapping it shut again and looking confused at the shaking girl in front of him. Was she actually laughing? At one of his jokes? On her own costs? Wow, seemed like he did improve after all.
"Well done Lady-Killer, didn't know you had it in you." Yang managed to say after she calmed down again, eyes back to their normal lilac colour.
"Heh, yeah. Me neither." was all Jaune could reply at the moment, still stunned by the fact that he actually survived.
"That doesn't change the fact that I will get you back for it though." the brawler stated as an afterthought, making Jaune gulp in fear.
He finally got saved from his rather uncomfortable position by none other than Nora, who gulped down the last of her presumably around three dozen pancakes before looking at him in confusion.
"Aren't you going to get some breakfast Jauney? They even have cheesecake today."
At this, the knight eagerly chose to accept his teammates - intended or not - invitation to change the topic.
"That's great, but did you really have to throw one at me to show me?" he asked Nora, what gained him a surprised look from the Valkyrie in return.
"Why would I do that." was all she replied with. At that, Jaune could only deadpan at the girl. Was she serious? It's not like she needed much reason to do all the other random things she used to do. Like jumping on persons.
She actually had a reason to do this, remember? Oh shut it, will you, nobody asked for your opinion on the matter.
"Well if you didn't throw it, who did?" Jaune finally asked, spinning once on his spot to point out the completely empty cafeteria except for the four of them.
"Ruby did." the redhead simply said.
At that, said girl let out a shriek and turned to Nora with a face of betrayal.
"Nora!" she shouted in an accusing tone "You were supposed not to tell him!"
"But I don't lie to my leader." was all Nora had to say.
And just like that, Jaune found himself grinning like an idiot at Nora's words. It weren't even the words themselves that made him smile, but the way Nora said them, being utterly confused as to how she could do so much as lie to him. That made him feel somewhat proud. Of his teammate as well as of himself.
However, a question still formed in his head and he promptly adressed it at the reaper in front of him.
"Why did you throw a cake at me?"
At that, Ruby vanished from her spot at the table in a blur just to reappear right beside him, giving him the most adorable puppy eyes he had ever seen on a human being all the while practically shouting.
"Im so sorry, we played truth or dare yesterday and Yang dared me, I was afraid of what she might've asked if I said truth so I said dare and she smiled and said I dare you to throw somthing at Jaune tomorrow at breakfast and I said no way, that's mean but she wouldn't change her mind and so I figured if I have to throw something at you it should at least be something you like, so when I spotted the cheesecake ..." she stopped in her incredibly fast paced rambling the moment Jaune laid a hand on her shoulder - the left one without any cheescake on it, mind you - and calmly said.
"Relax Rubes, no harm done, I just was curious as to why you did it. I know exactly how..." he looked at the brawler for a second, who looked back at him with a grin. "... convincing your sister can be."
"Oh, you have no idea." the blonde silently replied to that, all the while smirking.
Jaune shivered.
"But still" Ruby piped up "I probably ruined your glove and you even got some on your armor and your trousers. I'm really sorry."
"Ah, don't worry, I'm just gonna change into something else right before we go and take these" he pointed at his current clothing "to a cleaning down in Vale. I'm sure they will take care of this in no time, so don't worry, that's ..."
"A piece of cake?" Yang interrupted him with an expectant grin, which slightly faltered upon the sight of Ruby and Jaune facepalming in perfect simultaneity.
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad." the blonde then exclaimed, to which Jaune could only shake his head before turning back to the crimsonette in front of him.
"What I wanted to say is it's no big deal, really. Got it?" at this the girl in question nodded happily before rushing at him for a quick embrace, catching Jaune completely by surprise and causing him to once again blush a deep shade of red, especially with Yang's little "story" still present in his mind.
"Thank you Jaune, you're the best." Ruby stated, before she let go of him and cocked her head in curiosity at his current colour.
"You alright?"
"Hm, oh yeah, absolutely, just had a little more ... close contact with other people today than normaly..."
"Ha, this I believe immediately." Yang cut in. That however caused Nora to finally return to this planet after she'd been staring through the window for the past few seconds. Her eyes focused on Yang for a second before her gaze turned to Jaune and she seemingly decided to rejoin the "The world against Jaune Arc" game, since her smile grew even wider before she stated.
"I don't see your problem with that, oh fearless leader, it's just like I told you before. Don't worry, it's absolutely..."
"Yeah, yeah, I think I already got it at the time." Jaune hastily replied, Nora's cut in doing nothing to lessen his blush at all and Yang's reappearing grin meaning nothing good for him, the knight decided that this would be just the perfect moment to disappear for a minute. Or a year. So before Yang could retort anything, he practically shouted.
"So, I'm just gonna get myself some breakfast now, cause ... you know, food and stuff. Important."
Wow. I just labeled myself as the biggest blithering idiot Remnant has ever seen. Way to go, Jaune. Way to go.
Before anyone could react, he hastily made his way over to the food distribution, all the while wondering if he could take some lessons from Ruby as well. He actually pondered about it for a moment, before shaking his head free of the thought. That would of course never work since her unnatural speed was only thanks to her Semblance, and he doubted that those puppy eyes she could master so easily would look very convincing on his face.
Finally arriving at the food distribution he took a moment to take in the huge amount of food in front of him. At this moment, Jaune doubted there was any food in the world you wouldn't get here. There was everything, from regular breakfast food, such as bread, ham, watermelon, bacon, eggs and so on to some not so regular breakfast food, the cheesecake he was about to get only beeing one example. He came across tons of pasta, steak, pizza and ... lobster? Now this was getting ridicolous. But after his time at Beacon, such things as lobster for breakfast couldn't faze Jaune anymore. So he simply shook his head at the sight, went over to where the cakes were and picked up the cheesecake. Yes, he actually took the whole cake, save for the one piece that got smashed up on his face before. He freaking loved cheesecake, okay? Turning around to walk back, a stray thought crossed his mind.
Just who is responsible for bringing up all the food this early in the morning anyway?
He certainly didn't envy them for their job...
Returning to his friends with the prize in his hands, he saw them arguing about something. And just as he had expected, he wasn't even able to sit down completely before all three of them turned to face him and Yang called out
"Jaune, we need you to settle an argument." while glancing at Nora. Settling an argument between a burning fire and a raging storm? Great. Just what he always dreamed of.
Hey, at least your usage of words is improving. That whole "storm and fire" thing sounded pretty poetic actually.
He cracked a smile. Right. And if he could be poetic, then settling one little argument between Yang and Nora wouldn't be a problem.
"Sure, what's it about?"
"About who would be the leader of a team consisting of us four." Yang clarified.
Or maybe it would.
A/N Once again hello everyone and welcome to the second part of "Of warriors and teenagers". Since I spontaneously decided to continue on my idea for now, there will probably be a few more chapters connected to the previous one. As mentioned last time, any hints or ideas of how to improve this story gramatically or with regard to contents, as well as opionions about whether to continue it or not, are more than welcome and very appreciated. That being said, thank you very much for everyone who already followed or faved my story despite it only being published for such a short time. I sincerly hope you all enjoyed reading it. And since this definitely will be my last post in 2015, I wish you all a very happy New Year.
Numb3rs96
PS: Before I forget about it, I realized during writing that I totally suck at doing puns. So if you have an idea for a convenient pun Yang could use in any line of this story so far where I obviously missed the chance, I would love to hear about all of them so I can make Yang's character more realistic. Thank you for your help.
Review:
Green Gustavo: First of all, thank you very much for being the first one to actually write a review for my story, and a positive one on that. I got to admit though that, since I'm not directly planning on making this an actual story and therefor to differ from canon so far, I never intended on doing any pairings at all. However, things like that may change in the future and I will definitely keep your idea in mind, since I agree that those two together make a pretty hilarious combination.