Disclaimer: I don't own RWBY and I'm not seeking a profit off of this tale.
"…and you're sure this is your schedule?" Weiss nearly growled out, a tick mark nearly visible on her temple. Jaune nodded tiredly as he kept his body bent over next to the limo window. "Ugh, fine then. We'll work out a schedule for how you'll be assigned during the week tomorrow."
"Assigned?"
"Of course," Cinder replied from deep within the limo. The limo frame blocked her face from Jaune's eyes but the dimming sunlight illuminated her shapely crossed legs. He quickly averted his eyes for fear of them being gouged out should he continue his gaze. "We can't expect you Errand Boys to run around campus attending to all of our whims, so we've devised a plan to split your work between us. We're not savage slavers."
"Could've fooled me," Jaune retorted, causing Weiss to scoff in disgust. Coco merely hummed with amusement at his attitude as she looked over one of her newly bought sweaters while Cinder remained silent. "Sorry, but it's hard for me not to imagine that after the sheer amount of labor you all put me through today."
"Watch your tongue." Weiss warned, clearly not approving of his snarky remarks. "I will not be sarcastically accused at by a simpleton."
"Fine," Jaune huffed.
"As I was saying," Cinder continued now that the tensions simmered down a tad. "Given your classes and our own schedules, it'll be easy to figure out an even split of your time between the three of us for the weekdays."
"And the weekend?"
"Sunday is your day off for you to do homework and relax so that you won't fall over dead after the first two weeks or so."
"You make it sound like that's happened before."
Cinder easily brushed the keen observation away and continued, though she was getting more and more interested in just how insightful the new Errand Boy really was. "Saturday is typically a free for all day. Usually the Errand Boy will be split between us if we aren't all together."
"So I have to run around like a headless chicken back and forth?" Jaune paled at the idea. The amount of car rides involved had him already shaking.
"You are headless," Weiss harshly insulted. She was unfazed by Jaune's exasperated look. "Though a chicken easily outmatches you in utility."
"Hey!"
"Don't worry," Cinder reassured, her velvet voice slowly calming the frantic and angry blonde if only because of its alluring tone. However her eyes suddenly grew playful, yet grave at the same time."I'm sure you'll do fine."
That blatant lie did not sound reassuring at all.
"That's her way of saying 'Good luck and don't die on us.'" Coco filled in from beside Weiss.
Coco's bluntness was even less reassuring.
"Whatever," Weiss muttered as she crossed her arms in frustration. After Jaune emailed them his schedule and Scroll number, after some reasoning and subtle coercion by Cinder, she realized his class list and did not like the idea of this dunce sharing a class with her.
He was competition. Idiotic, trivial competition, but competition nonetheless. She will not have him ruin her, not after he embarrassed her so back at the mall. What happened was a fluke, a ridiculous mishap is all. It's not like he's actually even close to matching her own intellect or even capable of threatening her superiority in class.
No, she will destroy him in academia and work him back into the dirt from whence he spawned.
"We'll deliberate and email you your schedule tomorrow." Cinder said. "Until then our business with you is adjourned."
"Fine then," Jaune acquiesced, sighing deeply to work more stress out from his aching body. He really needed to loosen up and relax after today's ordeal. He quickly glanced back the full limo trunk and then back to the bag filled interior. "Hey before you leave, can I quickly ask you all something?"
Cinder blinked in slight surprise. Errand Boys usually ran away as soon as they could, but this one was willingly staying to talk more. This man was surprising her more and more. While it was a nice change of pace, it was starting to get on her nerves. "Yes?"
"Okay I have seven sisters…"
"Seven sisters?" Coco asked in slight shock as he brought her out of her clothing induced stupor. "Damn, must've been rough for you with all that estrogen running around the house huh?"
Jaune stifled a chuckle. He never had anyone put their sympathies quite like that before. "Thanks for the condolences. But as I was saying, I have seven sisters and I have to say the amount of clothing you three bought just hours ago would be too much for all of them. I understand why they have to buy a lot, they share most of their clothes and there's seven of them, but how in the world can you justify buying all of this? Are you even going to touch even half of these again after today?"
"And why do you believe it's appropriate for you to even inquire us about that?" Weiss snapped, hoping he would just shut up and leave. Most Errand Boys would've left by now and even the most steeled ones didn't linger after she started yelling. "This is our capital and it is assuredly none of your business."
Jaune was slightly taken aback by Weiss's questioning. Not that she was angry again, he was already getting used to that, but the fact that her wording and tone suddenly became incredibly business-like. 'Is she already training to run her family's company or something? If that's true then why is she even here at Beacon and not at Schnee headquarters?'
"A girl's gotta have options Errand Boy," Coco replied. "It is the spice of life after all."
"Yeah well at some point all the spices just start to blend into some kind of jumbled mess of flavors if you ask me."
Coco's previous smirk suddenly devolved into a frown at Jaune's comment. He was starting to sound like…
"Whatever," She mumbled as she went back to looking at her sweater, flipping it inside out and analyzing the inner seams of the sleeve junctions. Her cheery mood was slowly slipping away.
Jaune noticed her changed demeanor and tried to apologize, only for Cinder to interrupt him. "Don't worry about that." He narrowed his eyes to try to find Cinder's within the depths of the limo's dark shadows again. He found her honey amber eyes barely boring through the darkness, watching his own with…with…something. He couldn't put his finger on it. Boredom? Annoyance? Amusement? It was hard to pinpoint exactly what she felt towards him.
And he read people well. However Cinder was an entire enigma to him, probably the best he's ever met.
"Just enjoy the rest of tonight and tomorrow. It'll probably the last time you can truly enjoy yourself for a while. I wouldn't waste it asking meaningless questions." Cinder coolly argued.
Jaune stifled a smirk as he saw through her little bantering game. Maybe she was amused by him. "Well, if I'm going to be your Errand Boy, I might as well get to know you all better to help us all later in the long run." He countered. He may have asked originally out of curiosity and exasperation, but now it morphed into something else entirely. It was dangerous territory, but so far he was avoiding the mines and fired shots.
Weiss's glaring eyes slightly widened in shock at his logic.
Coco ignored him, too focused on the segmented and slightly puffed up collar of another sweater on her lap.
Cinder grinned before leaning over to show the last of the sunlight her face. "No need to start now Errand Boy. We'll get to know each other much more later on. Whether or not you'll survive to have that question answered," Her grin suddenly turned predatory and dark as the sunlight finally dipped beneath her face. "Is another question entirely."
Jaune gulped as his new confidence quickly shriveled away. He was playing with fire now and he almost just stepped into a lava pit. "O-okay then. Messaged received."
"Good," Cinder replied. Weiss had a victorious smirk as she saw Jaune's soul fill with fear and apprehension again, something that he needed to learn to live with from now on. Coco just kept ignoring the conversation.
As the limo sped off into the arriving night, Jaune slowly made his way back to his house. His feet still ached, his hands still had handle imprints on them, and his heart was a mix of fear, stress, and desolation.
He had gotten cocky at talking with the three and it might've cost him dearly. Weiss was really angry at him for some reason or another, Coco got offended by him somehow, and Cinder was starting to grow more sinister by the hour.
And it was just the first day, how he'll juggle homework and leisure in all of this was still beyond his comprehension.
"I'll figure something out," Jaune promised himself as he dug his keys out. The interior was still dark which meant Ren hadn't returned yet. "At least someone had a good day today. He's probably having a good night too."
After a hot shower Jaune slipped into his onesie and turned his laptop on. His battered mind and soul left him in no mood to write, even if he had plenty of ideas of how to portray those three like the she-devils of old. Instead he needed to unwind and relax like Cinder said.
"What to play then?" Jaune wondered as he scrolled through his library of games. "How about Might and Swords? Haven't stretched my RTS muscle memory for a while now."
Now it's important to note that when Jaune plays a video game, it meant he destroys at video games. Years of practice honed his mind and hands into a force to be reckoned with in online matchmaking. From shooters to strategy games, Jaune Arc was an elite gamer through and through.
Might and Swords was the latest real time strategy game he had honed his craft on. Released barely a month ago, the game had soared into the highest echelon of competitive play with tournaments already being held throughout Remnant. Only the top forty Platinum Ranked players could join the tournaments and slug it out one on one and unfortunately Jaune still wasn't good enough to join that roster. He was ranked seventy five in Platinum and it's been difficult ranking up with every game a struggle to even maintain his current standing.
But he needed to vent some of his newly acquired stress and he figured Might and Swords was the best means to do so. Five games in and two hours later Jaune was feeling might fine with his work, winning all five matches with varying degrees of difficulty. As he queued up for his next match, he quickly left to get water. When he returned, he nearly spat it all out at the sight of his newest opponent.
"Who is this?" Jaune asked himself in disbelief. He moved his cursor over the Rank fifty two player. "'Victory Incarnate?'" He dug deeper and viewed the person's stats. "What in the-? Only six hours of game time and he's already this high of a rank? And with a perfect win-loss ratio?" His eyes widened at how hard his next match would be. "Forty seven wins and no losses? Is that even possible?"
His questions would remain unanswered as the timer ticked down. Jaune shook himself out of his stupor and quickly selected his faithful faction, the Barzu Empire, to enter the game.
Prepare for War!
The Shining Knight vs. Victory Incarnate
"Get ready Jaune. Get ready for the game of your life."
The war raged for hours. Jaune feared real life dehydration at this point. His hands and forehead were sweating as he were running a marathon, his fingers racing across the keyboard selecting troops and entering shortcuts to quicken his micro and macro management. But it seemed futile against his opponent. However he was he was an excellent player, strategic in all his actions whether he was scouting for Jaune's hidden troops for moving to harass Jaune's base of operations.
But Jaune would not yield. He moved his armies to flank and block each attempt Victory Incarnate made on his base. Screams of prerecorded agony and death sang through the room yet Jaune pressed forward. Spying a gap in the western sector, he ordered his battalion to split four ways, three groups to distract and one to infiltrate and attack the enemy base. He needed to split Victory Incarnate's troops in hopes he would make a mistake that Jaune could exploit.
As luck would have it the enemy took the bait and disengaged most of his units to fend off the fourth group. Jaune inwardly screamed in joy as he readied his next attack. He regrouped his last three battalions and marched directly for the base, fully intent on obliterating it.
"I've got you now!"
Warning, our castle is under siege my king! The game hollered at Jaune. Jaune's eyes frantically raced across the screen to see what had happened, only to realize Victory Incarnate had a contingency plan.
"His Black Aura Stalker Squads!" Jaune yelped in horror as the hidden units began to slaughter they way into the depths of his kingdom. "They'll destroy my castle in an instant! My guards can't cut through their armor in time! Damn it!"
There was no time to lose, Jaune had to act. His own soldiers were already attacking the opposing castle but their siege units and attacks wouldn't finish it off in time, especially since Victory Incarnate kept spawning an endless line of guardsmen and Dust Weavers to cut through his units.
He quickly began spawning his own guards to hold down the squads. It was a battle of attrition and unit management now. Jaune summoned the rest of strength and mental fortitude to start controlling his guardsmen to literally block the enemy from hitting the castle whilst switching back forth between his own men at the oppose base. As he watched his castle's health bar slowly go into the yellow he clenched his teeth in fear.
Suddenly the Black Aura Stalkers began to move individually! That meant Victory Incarnate was trying to heavily counter Jaune's defensive maneuvers, meaning he was ignoring his own base's defenses!
"This is it!" Jaune gasped to himself. "I. Will. Win!"
Game over!
Jaune roared in joy as the camera panned over to his opponent's base to watch his castle crumble to the ground. He was beyond excited and ecstatic, overjoyed at his own skill and dumb luck last game.
"Yes! Oh my god yes! Yeah!" He screamed to the heavens.
"Quiet down!" Ren said loudly from the living room. Apparently he popped back into existence sometime ago.
"Sorry!"
Turning back around to the game he found Victory Incarnate had already left the matchmaking lobby. Jaune quickly settled down but the victory continued to stoke the passionate fire in his heart. His mirthful eyes stared back at the screen as he kept replaying the last few seconds in his mind.
Little did he know Victory Incarnate was doing the same, eyes livid and glaring, lips fractured into deep, disapproving frown, teeth clenched in unadulterated, unfettered rage.
Victory Incarnate's name was made false tonight by The Shining Knight; the most unwelcomed surprise of the gamer's recent past.
There will be vengeance and there will be no mercy.
For even the strongest knight will fall before the fires of Victory's fury.
Again, sorry for the short chapter. Hope you enjoyed and please let me know what you think in the reviews, I always welcome further insight and constructive criticism.
Was this last part about gaming really necessary? I know some of you might find it lame and pointless, but it'll be important later on. After all, you already know the players, don't you?