Ok, so I'm back from camp, honestly I was worried I was going to ruin my updating streak with this one while I was camping, but I managed. Ok so I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.
I'm going to be honest this may be my least favorite chapter so far and perhaps yours as well, but this is something I feel that must be out of the way and necessary. Although you may not see why, if not let me know and I will try my best to explain it.
Hope you still enjoy all the same.
Yesterday's Bully, Tomorrow's Friend
Team CRDL arguably consisted of four of the roughest individuals in Beacon Academy, though they certainly had the strength to deserve to enter this school, they aren't exactly likable. They bully people with insecurities, whether they are faunus or humans who look vulnerable to them. Their leader Cardin, was the roughest of them all, he enjoyed picking on the weak, especially a certain Knight, when he wasn't protected from his Spartan teammate.
The team of bullies were in their room, and their leader was furious. Cardin was punching a practice dummy with a picture of Jaune Arc's face on it's head, he punched it several times thinking of all that has happened. He was angry enough when he lost to the puny Arc the first time, then the second, third, fourth, and who knows how many more times he lost to him.
Cardin punched the dummy with his right. "I" Punched with his left. "DON'T" His right. "GET" His left. "IT!" With his right again the head with Jaune's picture came clean off it's body and hit the wall rolling on the ground. The brute growled squeezing his fists in anger. "How can that little runt beat me so many times!" He yelled, he was the biggest, baddest student in his home town how can he lose to someone who looked like he couldn't lift half his own weight?
His teammates looked at their leader, giving expressions of fear for their leader. "Um" Dove began as Cardin turned his head to him. "Maybe it's because of his aura?" He asked as his two other teammates backed away from him, Cardin threw a book at his head making him fall and hit the back of his head against the wall.
Although Cardin already knew the answer to that question, he still couldn't handle that he'd lose to such a wimpy looking kid. Despite his lanky frame Arc can actually fight, not only that but he reacts quickly to his attacks as if he knew what he was going to do next and of course has huge amounts of aura, allowing him to continue to fight longer than him and his friends. Not to mention, lately the leader of CRDL seemed to be losing faster to him. Every time their matched up it's as if Jaune is faster and his strikes are a lot harder than the fight before. "We have to find a way to teach him a lesson." He stated including his teammates into his problem.
"Um... Cardin?" Sky began earning a glare from his bigger leader. "Maybe we shouldn't."
"And why's that?" The brute asked as he yanked Sky up and pushed him against the wall.
Sky gulped but continued. "Well, don't you remember what happened last time you pulled a prank on him by sending him flying in his locker."
At this Cardin shook, he remembered alright, it was his first and last prank on the knight. Jaune's partner the grand champion Pyrrha, she caused him and his teammates enough pain to last them their entire lives. The things she did to them, he's still trying to forget. The brute then let go of Sky dropping him to the floor and put a hand to his chin thinking, eventually he smiled as an idea struck him. The large young man looked to his teammates. "We just gotta not let him or anyone he knows it's us."
"What do ya mean Cardin?" Dove asked as he helped Sky up.
"Well, let's say this prank is an accident then we can't be blamed for something that wasn't our fault right?" Cardin asked sarcastically with a grin. "That way he get's what he deserves and we don't have to go through... that again." He said with a shiver, his teammates did as well.
"But how do we accidentally prank him?"
Sky slapped him on the shoulder. "Dude, he's saying we make it look like an accident get it?"
"Ohhh, ok, but, how do we do that."
Cardin chuckled. "Don't worry, I have it all planned out." He stated as he began speaking of the details of his plan.
(-)-(-)-
Meanwhile with team JNPR.
"ACHOO!" Jaune sneezed and scratched his nose.
"Bless you." Ren said."
"Thank you." He replied as he sniffled.
Nora ran up to him. "Jaune are you sick, I hope not, don't you know we have a field trip tomorrow?" She said in his face.
Jaune chuckled. "I'm fine Nora, I'm fine."
"Oh no, I think we should check your temperature, Ren give me your thermometer!"
Pyrrha interjected. "Nora, Jaune merely sneezed his fine, I'm sure we won't need a thermometer."
"Your right Pyrrha we don't need the thermometer." She spoke as she put a hand to her crown and took it off revealing Pyrrha's bare forehead.
"Hey!" Pyrrha complained as her jewel was taken from her. "Nora give that, ah!" She yelled as her head was pushed gently against Jaune's, their foreheads were touching as well as their noses, this made her go as red as her hair. "Wha"
Jaune's face started turning red as well. "What are you doing Nora!" The knight yelled embarrassed that he was so close to his partner.
"What?" Nora asked as she kept pushing their heads together. "This is how lots of people check each other's temperature in movies, so why not in real life, how is it Pyrrha?"
"It's" Pyrrha began, but found herself enjoying the feeling of Jaune so close, his body heat, those clear blue eyes, and his lips were so close. But then she realized that she was taking too long to reply and quickly pushed Nora's hand off of her. "He- he's fine!" She said embarrassed, and turned to Nora. "And don't do that again!"
Nora tilted her head. "But Pyrrha I thought that you wanted to be closer to your partner, isn't that in your diary?"
"Yes, but that wasn't what I-" Pyrrha stopped for a few seconds and looked into Nora's eyes. "What, you mean you read my diary?!"
"Guilty!" The orange haired girl said proudly, earning a look of horror from Pyrrha and a confused look from Jaune. " And boy reading it is a lot of fun, especially in page 45 where you want-" Pyrrha jumps Nora and covers her mouth. "MPH!"
"Be quite, please, and you're not suppose to read MY diary!"
Jaune and Ren watch as the girls enter a dust cloud of them playfully fighting. The knight looked to Ren and chuckled. "Nora's good at making things lively huh?"
Ren kept his blank expression. "That's putting it extremely mildly." He commented dryly.
Jaune merely shrugged his shoulders watching the female teammates bicker back and forth but without spite. He couldn't have asked for a more awesome team.
(-)-(-)-
Everyone was within the Forever Fall forest, Glynda Goodwitch was leading the students through it for an assignment. They were each suppose to gather one jar tree sap from it's trees. They split up into their respective teams, cutting the trees for their sweet sap.
Jaune cut a tree at it's side, letting loose some sap and brought up his jar allowing the sap to fall into it. "Do you think they'd mind if we took an extra jar of this stuff to eat, cause it's actually really good." The knight commented to Pyrrha.
"Perhaps" Pyrrha replied but pointed to their other teammates. "However I think that one of our teammates is hyper enough."
The blonde watched as Nora quickly drank the sap as Ren handed her the jar. "Maybe you're right." He chuckled as he put a finger on the sap and put it in his mouth. "Still tastes good though." He noted as his jar finished filling up. "Have you filled up yours yet?"
Pyrrha looked at her jar only to see it half full. "Not quite, I'll go ahead and cut another tree." The Spartan left the knight as he took his jar and closed the lid on it. He walked to where he saw his partner walked when more sap fell on him. "Ahh!" He yelled as he was covered in sap, he shook as the red substance covered him and looked up where he saw it come from and sees the green mohawk wearing member of team CRDL.
"Whoops my bad!" Sky yelled in a feign surprised tone. "You alright man?"
Jaune licked the substance with his tongue. "Yeah, don't worry about it." He said as he walked to the direction where he saw a lake to wash off.
Sky chuckles that the knight fell for it, jumped down the tree and turned around to see Cardin and his teammates. "How was that?"
Cardin chuckled and gave a thumbs up. "Good, now for the fun part."
"Wait, you mean we aren't done yet?"
"No way, we still have Jaune's lesson right here." He stated as he brought out a box that was emitting buzzing sounds.
(-)-(-)-
Jaune was by the lake and covered himself with a lot of water to get rid of the sap. "It won't come off." He stated with annoyance, why does his bad luck always have to step in the way? "Well at least it can't get any" He paused as he heard a buzzing sound from behind, he turned around to see a swarm of Rapier Wasps heading for him. "Worse!" The knight jumped in the luck as the swarm flew over the lake.
In the water Jaune was holding his breath as long as he could, but the swarm would not go away, the knight knew that he couldn't stay in the water forever. Quickly he swam to the other side of the lake and jumped out with the Rapier Wasps still chasing him.
As he ran he could have sworn he heard laughing but ignored it as he ran.
The rapier wasps were getting closer as he ran, he looked back to see the swarm gaining on him, he kept sprinting until he hit something firm and furry. He landed flat on his back and looked up to see an ursa looking down on him, he then looked back to see the swarm right behind him. "Oh this isn't good." And the wasps and the ursa were attacking Jaune at once before he could pick up his weapon.
(-)-(-)-
Team CRDL stopped their laughing as they see Jaune helpless on the ground with an ursa and the swarm of rapier wasps were about to attack. Cardin shook his head, this prank was actually going too far. "Oh man, where did that ursa even come from?"
His teammates looked at him and at the ursa. "Um, maybe he'll be ok?" Dove asked wishing to avoid getting stung or ripped apart by that ursa.
Cardin cringed as he sees Jaune about to be filleted by his 'prank' he sighs wishing he didn't have to do this.
(-)-(-)-
Jaune closed his eyes knowing that there was no way he could protect himself from this predicament, until an explosion right behind him killed the swarm of rapier wasps behind him confusing him and even the grimm in front of him. He turned around to see Cardin standing there with his weapon out.
"Arc, get off your butt and take out your weapon!" He yelled.
"Cardin?" The knight asked surprised but instinctively rolled out of the way and took out his sword and shield. The ursa charged at him and swung it's claws at him, however after a brief struggle he cut off the beast's head. As the creature fell he looked to Cardin surprised that the guy would help him given how he usually gives him angry looks, before he could say anything, an interruptions happens.
"Jaune!" It was his partner Pyrrha sprinting to him, she looks at the ursa and the black ashes next to him, she grabbed his shoulders. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine Pyrrha , really." He said as he sighed. "Thanks to Cardin."
"Cardin?" She asked confused and look to the brutish boy scratching the back of his head. She knew he held a grudge against his partner, so why help him now?
"I um" Cardin began but failed to continue his words as Pyrrha's suspicious gaze peered on him.
"He saw what happened and helped me out." Jaune finished for him having Pyrrha turn to him with a surprised expression, he then turned to his supposed bully and smiled. "Thanks Cardin, I owe you one."
Cardin couldn't believe what just happened, he actually looks like he helped Jaune rather than try to prank him, not wishing to endure Pyrrha's torture again h nods. "Yeah no problem." He stated and turned around. "Just forget about it." He said as he walked away to his team.
Pyrrha looked to Jaune with a strange look in her eyes. "That was... out of character for him don't you think?"
Jaune shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he's not so bad."
"You think so?"
The knight gave a look of confusion as he heard that, and hears something from the back of his head that sounded like Cardin's voice.
"On your feet Arc, you can't go out yet, you have a job to do!"
Jaune grabbed his head as he heard the voice.
"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked worried as she grabbed Jaune's head. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine just a headache." The knight said rubbing his head in pain, as his mind pushed the voice to the back of his subconscious. 'He can't be that bad.' He thought.
(-)-(-)-
Later that night team CRDL were in their dorm, with their leader looking out the window.
"So what now Cardin?" Dove asked. "Are we still going to get back at Jaune?"
The brute sighed as he remembered Jaune thanking him for the helping hand he lent, part of him still wanted to get back at him for beating him at every spar. But then he realized that instead of blaming him, he should blame himself for losing. He almost had Jaune in the infirmary or worse for his 'prank'. "Just forget it."
"But Cardin what about-"
"I said forget it." The brute said and looked at his teammates. "From now on, we'll show Beacon that we're the best team here, got it?"
His teammates looked to each other and to their leader. "Got it!"
"Good, now let's hit the sparring area, next time I get back at Jaune in the arena." He said cracking his knuckles with the rest of his teammates.
Ok so, I know that this chapter seemed kinda pointless, however I thought it could be a good way to hint on what Cardin was doing before the little time loop. He had been working with Jaune before his unfortunate death at the hands of Cinder. I'm not sure how many of you are disappointed with this chapter but it was to get 'Jaunedice' out of the way, but in a different way. I thought of him doing more interactions with our more favorite characters but this felt like something that needed to be out of our way before we get to the fun stuff, you know?
But hey, you enjoyed that hint that Pyrrha's starting her crush on Jaune right? I hope so, I'll do better next time if you didn't,
So don't worry, the next couple chapters are back to the fun and possibly the plot. You'll see.
Anyway here are the reviews for this week.
Bookeater-otaku: Thank you, I try my best not to rush like I've done with other stories in the past.
FF8cerebus: Thank you, now her suspicions have numbed down to curiosity, as in how did he know she was a faunus. I hope that's not as iritating, but hey, I'm pretty sure Blake would be at least curious on how someone knows a secret she's been trying to hide right?
patleon909: Lol, I only regret that Yang doesn't know that Blake is a faunus and that I couldn't have her use that pun, it would have been awesome for her to use it, but oh well, I thought it was funny and I'm glad you did too.
IWEYC: Glad you enjoyed that.
As for the friends with benefits, hmm, to be honest I don't really see any of girls would go with that, not even Yang, I'm sure. Although other's interpretation on her character would say otherwise. I will be having multiple of them falling for our favorite knight, and we'll see where we go from there.
Also you have a point, but hey it's progress right? They're not like close friends but there getting there and perhaps something more down the line.
Ok so that's all the reviews, I really hope you at least liked this chapter, personally, I didn't I merely wanted this out of the way and not skip it like I did with initiation.
Ok so, if your new to my story, please review, favorite, follow, either way I will still add to this story next week, it'd just be a nice little bonus to know that people are following this story.
Have an awesome day. :)
