So…from here on out, things become more and more canon-divergent. Some events still happen in keeping with the original RWBY timeline, with slightly different outcomes. Later down the road, other events may not happen at all, or may be pushed further forward.
The Burning Beacon
Chapter 9: Where There's Smoke…
The rest of the week passed in relative calm, as did the following one. Since they didn't get jumped by the rest of Team JNPR, Riven figured Pyrrha'd kept their secret from her teammates beyond saying that some idiot sent a hunting troll to Remnant as a test. Yang Xiao Long peppered him with questions about dragons and other aspects of Red Fountain life, but had thus far been the only student to approach him directly from the two groups. That said, he expected to hear something from the Ginger Squad by the end of next week—Ruby, Nora, Pyrrha, and Bloom had been hunched over a couple spiral notebooks ever since the Grimm battle in Goodwitch's class, presumably trying to figure out how phantotechnology worked. He'd half a mind to just make them talk to Timmy, but thought better of it. Timmy turned into a stammering mess around pretty girls, even ones who only wanted to ask about weapons. And even if it didn't turn the carrot-topped geek into a gibbering loon, he shuddered at what ideas those five could come up with while working together. The magical dimension wasn't ready for that kind of carnage. Remnant, on the other hand…well, it might be ready, but Riven wasn't willing to take the blame if it wasn't.
"What are those idiots doing?" Stella asked over breakfast that morning, eyes fixed on something behind him. Riven turned around to see that Winchester brat picking on a brunette girl with rabbit ears. The boy yanked on the ears of the rabbit faunus while in full view of everyone in the cafeteria only a few days after getting reprimanded by Professor Goodwitch for launching Jaune Arc off grounds in one of the weapons lockers (for which Riven had personally punched him in the jaw). Of all the stupid… "Doesn't he know she's like a year older than us?"
"I don't think he cares," Mirta mumbled into her fruit and yogurt cup. "He's too much of a bully to worry about things like consequences."
Riven wondered where the faunus' teammates were, because surely they'd come to her defense if they knew about it. He barely even knew Mirta and he'd tear the school apart if someone picked on her. Provided Bloom didn't burn it down first. Speaking of which… "Where the hell is Goodwitch?" And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he spotted her marching through the cafeteria like a woman possessed. Her food tray languished on a table in her wake, forgotten in favor of a more worthy goal.
Students were not, strictly speaking, supposed to use their semblances on each other outside of class or the occasional previously-agreed-upon practice match between teammates or teams. Professor Goodwitch dealt swiftly and effectively with rule-breakers herself. However, none of that prior knowledge stopped Bloom from lobbing a flare at Cardin's food once she came within striking range. It was a good toss, landing smack in the middle of Cardin's scrambled eggs, and low powered enough not to set the whole tray on fire. Still, the smell of burning eggs filled the immediate area.
Cardin leapt away from the table, his face shuffling through a myriad of emotions before settling on 'offended' once he locked eyes with the redhead. "What the hell gives you the right…?"
"Right? You want to talk about rights after violating hers like that? What you just did was harassment and assault, Winchester." Bloom's lips twisted into a snarl as the rabbit faunus took cover behind the shorter huntress. He coughed to cover a laugh. Cardin stood about 5'11, rabbit-girl about 5'6, and Bloom came in at a whopping 5'2¾" tall. She was almost a whole foot shorter than Winchester and still gave the illusion of towering over him. "If I hear about this behavior again, I'll burn more than your breakfast, and that's a promise."
"You don't have the clout to tell me what to do!" Cardin growled. "My father's the mayor! He'll see you in jail for that stunt!"
"First, even if you got the charges to stick, it'd be juvie hall, not kingdom lock-up. Second, my mother is the deputy headmistress of the school whose code of conduct you just breeched," Bloom countered. "You're damn lucky Coco's not here right now, or you'd be unable to sit down for a month." Riven didn't know who the hell 'Coco' was, but he believed the threat. Bloom didn't pussyfoot around with hers. "Apologize. Now."
"Or you'll what?" He snarled, leaning into Bloom's personal space even as his teammates scooted further away. They, at least, had enough instinct to determine who the alpha was around here. "Won't you get expelled for starting fights, little girl?"
"As if an expulsion would stop my education." Her saccharine reply and would-be-innocent smile confused the taller boy. "Other schools have been vying for my attendance for years, and I've heard the military academy Riven went to in Magix is always looking for fresh recruits. I'd be the first Remnant native to go off-world for school in centuries. But you? Your daddy might be a big shot in Vytal, but he can't afford to ship you off to Atlas or Mistral, and Menagerie wouldn't take you with your history of…unpleasant interactions with faunus students. And Magix? Too far, too expensive, and not likely to tolerate your behavior. You have nowhere else to go, little Winchester, and we both know it."
Winchester made a watery growl. "She doesn't belong here."
"Then I suppose your eyebrows don't either. Expect Team CFVY's vengeance by this afternoon." And without another word, the redhead spun around and shepherded the rabbit-eared huntress to their table. He felt more than saw Stella tune out at that point, but he gave the redhead a small nod and raised his glass of orange juice toward her in salute. She smirked and sashayed off to retrieve her food tray.
"Was that really a good idea?" Mirta worried, as per usual, about the repercussions of taking on the school bully like that. Riven was beginning to loathe meeting a 'typical' witch; what Mirta didn't say about their attitudes spoke volumes.
"It's necessary if we want him to stop being a pain in everyone's asses before midterms," He scoffed. Rabbit-girl tilted her head at him, a total lack of understanding in her warm brown eyes, so he elaborated. "His kind, they think other people exist just to amuse or serve them. And like him, they're usually rich and come from political families willing to shell out a lot of credits to avoid a scandal. But it doesn't work that way at schools like Red Fountain or Beacon. We exist outside of town politics and good luck trying to bribe Ozpin." The headmaster wasn't a stupid man, he just played one on TV. "We aren't completely untouchable, but it's close enough that daddy's money won't save him from his own stupidity. The more we re-enforce that idea, the sooner he'll understand and stop doing stupid shit that might get us killed on assignments."
He hadn't kept his voice down, and there was no ignoring the strange look Jaune fixed him with before Bloom returned to the table.
Riven noticed his 'trainee' acting…odd around Team CRDL the rest of the week. Odd in a submissive, frightened sense that usually occurred through copious use of blackmail and bribery. And at the center of it all was that prat Cardin Winchester (whom the female portion of Team BSMR actively shunned and sometimes sabotaged after the Breakfast Incident). Team JNPR knew something was up, but their poorly-trained and terrified leader wouldn't let them help any. With a new 'assignment' in the Grimm-infested Forever Fall forest in the morning, however, Riven sensed disaster brewing if this mess couldn't resolve itself.
So, time to do something about it.
He wasn't sure what the girls would think of his plan. Mirta'd probably call it an invasion of privacy before retreating to her tent-fort of a bed and her new quartz focus staff. Stella and Bloom would consider it somewhere in between 'eavesdropping' and 'covert intelligence gathering' and offer suggestions on how to properly punish the punk. If things got ugly tonight and Cardin kept being an ass, he'd let Stella try out some of the hexes and curses she'd found in Mirta's old school books. Yes, even the one that (shudder) tied a man's privates into a fisherman's knot. No rich pretty-boy was gonna mess with his trainee.
Cardin Winchester and Jaune Arc were both cunning enough to get into school and keep the entire matter between the two of them before tonight. Neither of them, however, mastered subtlety yet, which gave him as much permission as he needed to settle in the hallway outside their meeting place and listen. The pair talked in what they thought were hushed whispers, but sounded clear as glass to him. Jaune wanted to stop doing Cardin's homework. Cardin wanted Jaune either out of school or wholly submissive to him, the damned plonker. And since Jaune'd apparently fudged his transcripts a lot to get in, Cardin had the means to at least guarantee a suspension. Or, he thought he did. They'd see about that soon enough.
Having worked himself up into a decent rant, the Winchester kid never heard Riven quietly open the door and sneak up behind him. Jaune noticed but was too terrified of Winchester to move. All the better for him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Winchester?"
Winchester jumped three foot in the air and tried to twist himself around. If he'd had more height on the jump, it might've worked, but instead the prat landed in an undignified heap on the floor. "Can't you see this is a private conversation?" The brunet spat.
"Now, if you'd both understood volume control, I'd buy that. As it stands? Nah, you're just mad you got caught," he said. "Now, I'll ask again: what do you think you're doing?"
"Business, now butt out," Cardin replied while picking himself up off the floor.
"Oh, you mean the blackmail and servitude? Yeah, I guess that could be called business, though not a legal one." He stroked his chin for effect. "You know, I could've sworn I heard you threaten to get Jaune expelled. Isn't that a bit stupid, considering what Nora Valkyrie will do to you with her hammer once she finds out?" And Bloom, but Nora got first dibs by dint of being the kid's teammate.
Cardin turned an ugly shade of magenta (not red or pink but magenta-approaching-puce). "Shut up! You don't know anything!"
"I know all students have to be cleared and vetted by Headmaster Ozpin." He inspected his fingernails in a manner he'd seen Stella use to great effect on numerous occasions this week. If the twitchy vein over the punk's right eye was anything to go by, it worked just fine here too. "If you don't think that man knows everything there is to find out about every student in this school, you're delusional. He won't let you expel Jaune over the transcripts; he knows and let him in in spite of it. Or maybe because of it? Man's a little crazy." he shrugged.
Cardin finally lost patience and took a swing at him. A very sloppy swing. Adjusting his stance like the RF instructors taught him, he grabbed the punk's arm and used momentum to throw him onto his back. The ridiculous armor took the brunt of the impact with the floor, but Cardin still landed with an 'oof' and metallic clanging loud enough to draw his teammates out to investigate.
"I'm leaving and taking him with me." He loomed over the panting Huntsman. "You will stop bothering him. You will stop trying to blackmail other kids into doing your homework because you think it's beneath you. If you don't, I'll tell Professor Goodwitch about this little chat and when she's done tearing a raw strip in your hide, I'll let Bloom and Nora have at you." And if that threat didn't put the fear of the Great Dragon, or Shadow Phoenix, or whatever deity was popular here on Remnant into them, they were beyond help and the Grimm would end their stupidity eventually.
With Winchester still wheezing on the floor and the other three either too dim or intimidated to move against him, he grabbed Jaune by the shoulder and hauled him out into the hallway. He didn't stop until they found an unused dorm, at which point he shoved the kid into it and faced him head-on. "I don't care how you got into this school." His own transcripts for Red Fountain were…less than stellar, according to Timmy. He'd had to fight his way through entrance exams and pass two different placement tests on-site to be admitted there because his background was apparently just that sketchy. "You're here to be a hero, not a sidekick or a martyr. You got a problem? Talk to your teammates or your teachers because I'm not gonna bail you out again." No matter how much fun he had throwing Winchester around, it wasn't worth it in the long run.
"Uh huh?" Jaune squeaked. "Then why did you…?"
"Because you weren't gonna and he had it coming. Now go back to your dorm. We still have class and a field trip tomorrow and I don't want to see you falling asleep on your sword."
The next day, in the middle of the forest and their entire class, Cardin decided to get back at Riven. Stella still wasn't sure what happened, only that the brunet boy showed up with a couple new bruises for class and Riven looked smugger than usual at breakfast, Jaune Arc trailing behind him like a lost puppy.
Something went down, though, and the moron decided to wait until they were in a forest full of Grimm to act on his master plan. Genius, he wasn't. Sure, the Grimm might eat Riven or Jaune before getting killed, but they could just as easily turn on the arrogant jerk that summoned them. It was a Dark Creature thing, and she was sure either Riven or Mirta could explain it a heck of a lot better if she really wanted to know the hows and whys behind their actions. If she cared, that is, which she didn't.
Cardin's plan wasn't even all that well thought-out as far as plans went. He just wanted to get Riven or Jaune in trouble; consequences, as always, happened to other people…right up until he couldn't run anymore. Anywho, he decided to juggle one of the mason jars full of sap and 'accidentally' drop it near team BSMR and the half of JNPR containing Jaune and Pyrrha (Nora and Ren had already left to turn in their jars). Assignments like this made her long for a Linphean on the school team roster—they'd have been done an hour ago if a nature mage sweet-talked the trees into donating sap freely instead of the long, drawn-out harvesting set-up that allowed this mess to occur. But, beggars can't be choosy and she took what she could get right up until the jar of sap broke.
Before Riven's intervention, Jaune might have flinched away and been covered in the stuff. Shadowhaunt, he might still be on Cardin's leash and been stuck gathering all of their jars of sap in addition to his own, despite being allergic to the stuff. But even if his battle scores didn't show it, the boy had instinct and determination on his side when he wanted, and he made use of them now. Jaune swung the sword flat-side out like a softball bat and hit the jar right back to where the rest Team CRDL set up shop. It broke at their feet, showering the team's shoes in sticky purple goop.
The Ursa showed up within a minute, the sap a favorite snack of theirs or something. She wasn't entirely sure how that worked, just that they were there and Cardin wanted to bolt. Tempting as it was to just feed him to the Ursa, she took the high ground, pulled out her staff, and trapped the team of would-be murderers inside a sun-powered shield. "That's quite enough for you cowards." Bloom and Riven were already dealing with the Ursa, and Mirta was on emotional damage control—the girl was damn powerful and had figured out how to push waves of 'calm' onto people in her vicinity—so Stella got the punks all to herself. Perfect. "Now, you're going to stay here and think about what we're going to do to you for trying to get other students eaten by a mindless demonic beast while we take care of said beast, m'kay?"
"Let me out of here!" Cardin banged against the shield with his fists. She snorted. As if that trick was going to work.o
"Nope, sorry, your request for early release has been and will continue to be denied until we get back on campus. Trust me, the teachers will hear about this."
For not being matched partners, Bloom and Riven were terrifying as a tag-team. Both of them had prior training to their enrollment, albeit through slightly different venues. Though he wasn't a leader, Riven had team experience and was apparently used to working with a partner holding a ranged weapon. So while Bloom hailed sub-machine gun rounds on the thing's tough hide, Riven got up on its off side and hacked at its legs near the knee joint. Then he'd back off and let her get a good fireball in before repeating the process. The first Ursa went down soon after it appeared. The second one dragged a reluctant Team JNPR into the fray by barreling into Jaune and nearly trampling him while trying to get to Team CRDL. Then it decided scared human made for a better snack and turned on the blond boy, but by then Jaune had his shield up and managed to re-direct it long enough for Pyrrha to impale it with her spear. It didn't kill the damn thing, but it kept it slow and distracted long enough for Blake and Yang (who'd decided to join in for the hell of it, apparently) to take it out. By then, their entire class had arrived on-site to see what the commotion was about. Professor Goodwitch was sure to be close behind them, if she wasn't already watching from the shadows.
For a long moment, no one dared to speak. Then… "That was AWESOME!" Ruby broke the silence with a screech. "You guys rocked! It was like the Ursa wasn't there! When did you get so good?"
"Well, I did spend all last year at a military school." Riven drawled, inspecting the blade of his phantosabre. "You pick things up fast there."
"And we've been practicing odd combinations all this week to prepare for this trip." Bloom grinned and clapped Riven on the shoulder. "He's not so bad once you get past the snark."
"Speaking of bad boys, what do we want to do with these losers?" she asked, sniffing in distaste. Most of the team might wear "traditional" armor but there was nothing resembling the loyal palace guard she'd grown up with in this pack of cowards.
"Well, we should let the other teachers deal with them, but I'm not above giving them a more personal lesson before we hand them over. Trying to get other students eaten is horribly bad form," Bloom said, her face the picture of innocence…or it would have been if her hair hadn't started escaping the ponytail and fanning around her face like tendrils of flame. "Nora? You want a shot at him?" She jerked her thumb at Cardin.
"Let's break his legs!"
"I'll take that as a yes."
In another version of events, Jaune and Cardin's schoolyard drama-fest might not have made it to the teachers' notice at all. In the stress of midterms, the blond's odd behavior could be easily written off if no other students stepped forward, and a Grimm attack in the Forever Fall forest wasn't exactly uncommon during that assignment. And odds were good nobody would have without Team BSMR pushing things along.
Nora had not, regrettably, broken anyone's legs yet (Professor Goodwitch stopped short at letting that slide), but the CRDL boys sported more bruises, cuts, and burns than they left campus with that morning by the time the girls finished with them. Cardin's formerly pristine side-part now stuck out at odd angles, almost as if he decided to stick his finger into an electrical outlet. Both his and Dove's eyebrows were nearly gone, and their armor had taken a royal beating from something. Sky and Russell were slightly less bruised but still plenty disheveled. All the while, Stella kept her energy orb in place around them, not trusting them to stay put without it.
Ruby, the fastest student in their year and possibly the entire school, had been sent ahead to let the teachers know what happened in the woods. When the odd parade of sap-jar-holders, prisoners, and conquering heroes returned to campus, they found Ozpin waiting on them with Team CFVY. Bloom grinned and waved at the group. "Coco! You missed all the fun!"
"So I heard." The girl with the designer sunglasses and black beret smiled. "I'm kinda sad I missed it. I wanted a go at them too…"
"Must you discuss this now?" Professor Goodwitch, her arms folded under her chest with the riding crop/focus wand gripped tightly in her right hand, asked.
"No time like the present, Mom," Her daughter replied. "Oh, and if you have to expel me for the whole fireball at the breakfast table thing and the fight in the woods, can I go to Riven's old school instead? They get to tame dragons there and I apparently qualify for like two partial scholarships."
"Rest assured, Miss Goodwitch, you are in no present danger of expulsion." Ozpin said while the girl's mother sighed in exasperation. "Now, team CRDL, it seems you boys view the school's code of conduct as 'optional' instead of 'mandatory'. Would you care to explain to me why you thought yanking on another student's ear hard enough to cause pain would be acceptable behavior?"
"Her kind don't belong here." Winchester sneered through a light wince as he tried to straighten his posture. Turned out, Mirta's new focus staff made an excellent melee weapon, and the spell she'd layered into Stella's bubble compelled the boys to tell the truth even if they didn't want to. "They're barely human."
"Not human," Russell spoke through gritted teeth.
"Hmm, so by your logic, Mirta shouldn't be here either, right? Though I bet she gets a pass because she's foreign," Stella butted in, unable to contain herself. "Since, you know, magic is virtually dead in the water here, a real witch like her must be something like a goddess to peons like you."
"My father will…"
"Not do a damn thing to save you if he knows what's good for him." Stella's perky smile never wavered in the face of Cardin's glower. Stupid boy wasn't used to dealing with anyone higher up the food chain than his father the mayor, but she'd seen-and turned down many boys just like Cardin Winchester. The key was acting like you were Head-Bitch-in-Charge and not letting them forget it. "You were totally caught red-handed trying to get another student fed to hungry Grimm because he wouldn't cow to your blackmail anymore. At my old school, you'd be expelled for that and then thrown in juvie for a year."
"You may consider yourself and your team on probation for the rest of the school year, Mister Winchester." Ozpin frowned. "You will also be banned from competing in the Vytal festival next semester, since you can't be trusted not to knowingly and deliberately sabotage another student's chances at winning."
"You can't do that!" Cardin growled. Dove nodded his approval of the statement but kept his mouth shut. The other two didn't seem to know what to do and kept their opinions to themselves rather than anger the headmaster further. Smart boys…sort of.
"I believe you'll find I can do a great many things you don't like, Mister Winchester," The headmaster answered before turning to the young blonde woman. "Thank you, Miss Solis, for your help, but I believe the staff have matters well in hand."
"If you insist," Stella said, dropping the bubble-shield. Shields and orbs had been the only kind of magic she'd used in the presence of other students and was thus all they thought her 'semblance' entailed. She'd probably be forced to admit the truth soon enough…but until then, she continued in her quest to stay as unremarkable as possible.
Cardin looked like he dearly wanted to punch her, but a pointed gesture from Professor Goodwitch kept him from doing anything more stupid than he'd already tried and failed to accomplish. "I'll make you regret this." He growled at Team BSMR.
A wide grin split Bloom's face. Paired with her escaping red hair and dirt-smudged cheeks, it gave the overall impression of 'crazy chick here' that did wonders at cowing Sky and Dove. "And we look forward to seeing you try."
