Disclaimer: I don't own RvB.

A/N: To my Guest reviewer: upon re-reading my last chapter, keeping an eye out for the triplets and Louisiana, I found that they were all included. However, I shall endeavor to give them a bigger role in up-coming chapters. *Spoiler!* I'm planning on writing a piece called 'Louie's Guide to Big Booms' slightly modeled after 'Caboose's Guide to Making Friends.' The Triplets also have their own segments planned but if you give me a prompt for your favorite character/s I will do my best.

Chapter 9: Arcs of Trouble

Marley had met a lot of people at Beacon but Jacque Arc was by far the most troublesome. "You are so frustrating!" she yelled at him, ditching her weapon and lunging at him with her bare hands.

"Whoa!" Jacque yelped, jumping back. This seemed to bring Marley back some, causing her to grab her weapon once more.

"You just seem to think you're just the best thing to happen to Remnant, don't you?!" the medic cried, slashing at him with her tonfa, which seemed to give her the same satisfaction beating him with her fists would have while making it more painful for him.

"What did I do to you, huh?!" Jacque asked, throwing himself out of the path of her next attack.

"What did you do?! Ha! You know!" Marley maintained.

"What's she talking about?" Jay asked Caleb. The Valkyrie heir shrugged.

"Heck if I know," he said.

"Jacque was a bullheaded idiot around her," Emily answered.

"Ah. That would do it then, wouldn't it?" Jay responded. Emily nodded and watched Marley whale on Jacque.

Let's back up a bit, shall we?

/*/

"Please. I need to know what he did!"

"Never knew you were one for soaps, Doc."

"Chi… you're literally inside his head. How could you not know?"

"... Selective deafness/blindness?"

"... Fair enough."

"HEY!"

/*/

Marley stared at the board, numb. She didn't know whether she was shocked and appalled or surprised or just confused.

Jacque Arc was her partner for the class project, not one of her teammates.

She… really wasn't sure how to take that. Sure, Jacque was fairly intelligent if his grades were anything to go by but she'd never worked with the Arc before. There were stories about the guy, there were always stories, but Marley had long learned to take the stories with a grain of salt. Gossip was a terrible thing after all, blowing small occurrences into scandals and reducing scandals into little things. Still, the rumors flying around were fairly consistent about his attitude. "Hey, you're Marlene White, right?" the boy in question asked, standing beside her desk. Marley jerked slightly and looked up at the blond. Jacque Arc was built like a tank with broad shoulders and powerful limbs, carrying his sword and shield with easy grace. Soft blond locks framed a square face with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. In short? If Marley hadn't been crushing on the wiry sniper a year above her, Jacque would have been the subject of several date fantasies.

"Yes, that's me," Marley said, nodding. Jacque smiled a near blinding smile at the medic student.

"Cool! I was hoping we could set up a time to work on our project?" Jacque asked. Marley smiled back and nodded.

"That sounds great! How's tomorrow at 3:45?" she asked. Jacque frowned in thought.

"Humm… I think I can make that. Can I get your scroll number?" he answered. Marley narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but held out her hand anyway.

"Give me your scroll and I'll enter it for you," she said. Jacque grinned and eagerly handed over his scroll.

"How about I give you my number as well? That way you can call me if something comes up," he offered. Seeing nothing wrong with this, and agreeing with his logic, Marley handed her scroll over, deft fingers already entering her number into Jacque's scroll. "Awesome! See you tomorrow!" he said, walking away and tossing Marley her scroll back over his shoulder. Surprised by the move, the medic just barely managed to catch the device.

"Yeah… awesome…" she trailed off, the last vestiges of her almost-crush getting trampled heavily.

/*/

"Man, I still don't see what's so bad about Jacque," Chi said. Doc shook his head.

"It is a bit confusing. Oi! Regenengel3! Where you going with this?"

"Um… I don't know?" the writer answered, hunkering behind her Toshiba. Chi and Doc both managed to give her dry looks through their helmets. "Hey! Don't look at me like that! I never had to deal with truly aggravating guys in high school! It's hard for me to write jerks without a reference or model in mind…" she defended.

"Right. And I'm suppose to believe that?"

"I will replace you with Kia and Eagle, just you see if I don't."

"Please, you love using us for this!"

"... Oh. My. Godiva. What. Have. I. DONE!? Doc! I've turned you into a snarky dork!" regenengel3 gasped dramatically. Seriously, it was the whole nine yards: sharp intake of breath, wide eyes, hands on her face, falling to her knees, everything.

"And this is why I chose him," Chi remarked, far too smug for an A.I.

"Herguer kerplah!" regenengel3… noised? Seriously, what would you call that? I mean, it wasn't a statement, or a remark, or even a sigh, it was just… noise! Inarticulate gibb…. "Oi! Narration! Stop rambling and get to work!" Okay. That one was a bark, hands down. "Narrator!" A~nd now she's growling. OKAY ALREADY! PUT DOWN THE FLAMING GLITTER BOMBS! I'M GETTING I'M GETTING! Sheesh…

/*/

The next day, Marley was at the fountain in the front courtyard at 3:40. Realizing she hadn't specified a location, Marley pulled out her scroll and sent him a quick text. A minute later and she pulled out her notebook and began to brainstorm for their project. Ten minutes later, Jacque still wasn't there and Marley had filled three pages with half-formed ideas. "Hey! Sorry I'm late, we ran into team STRQ on our way out of our last class and I just got away," Jacque said. Marley sighed and shook her head.

"Don't worry, I know how those guys are like," she said, thinking about the time she crossed paths with Summer the week previous. Talk about hyperactive rambling! And don't get her started on Raven. "So, while I was waiting, I came up with these. Take a look and tell me what you think," Marley said, trying to get their meeting back on track. Jacque hummed as he looked over her topics… then deleted them all and typed in his.

"This is what we're doing," he said, handing back the scroll.

/*/

"Oh! Harsh!"

"Hah! How's that for an overconfident idiot!"

"That's… still only one act."

"Oh shut up, Doc. Let me have my moment."

/*/

Marley was done. She was so done. With everything. With him. "What happened, Marley?" Butch, her crush from the year above, asked as he sat down beside her.

"Jacque Arc," she said and Butch groaned, his head falling back to hit the wall with a meaty thunk.

"Arcs, they're all trouble," he said.

"He just came in and deleted all my work and said we were doing it his way. He didn't even look at any of it!" Marley ranted.

"Then he vanished and left you to do all the work, didn't he?" Butch guessed.

"Yes!" Marley said with exasperation. "And he made it seem like he was actually sorry about it! I actually believed he had team stuff to do!"

"And then you found him chatting up some pretty little blond," Butch said.

"And then I found him chatting up Darla" Marley countered and Butch winced. Darla was one of the prettiest girls on campus, and she knew it.

"Right. Well. I can help you arrange a spar with him," Butch offered.

"It'll be less of a spar and more of a grudge match," Maley muttered.

"Might be what he needs," Butch said and Marley sighed.

"Yeah. Might be what both of us need," she allowed. "Let me know when it's arranged."

"Will do~!" Butch sang with evil glee. Dust but Marley loved him.

/*/

"Wait... I thought Marley pushed Flowdie away until..." Doc began.

"Do not question my choices."

"But..."

"Shut up. This is my OTP."

"You make no sense. What about continunity?"

"Doc. She's the author. Continuity's her cat."

"I... don't think that's how the idiom goes."

"I don't like cursing and unless that word is being appiled to an actual female dog, it qulifies. Plus I'm more of a cat person than a dog person."

"You can't just change idioms to suit you!"

"I repeat, she's the author. You really think things like that matter to her?" Doc began bashing his head against the desk.

"Onward!"

/*/

"And this is for all the girls you've messed with!" Marley bellowed as she drove him into the floor one last time, his aura dipping into the red. Jacques moaned while Jay, Caleb, and Emily clapped politely.

"An excellent win, Marley," Emily praised.

"You sure showed him," Jay added.

"Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats," Caleb remarked, toeing the heap of Arc.

"Aww~! Why didn't I think of that? I could have dug my keys into the side of his pretty little supped up fourwheel drive and carved my name into his leather seats~!" Marley complained. Jacques whimpered again, curling inward.

"Huh, I didn't know he had a fourwheel drive," Jay remarked.

"But do you have a Lousieville Slugger?" Caleb asked.

"Sure! It's on my wall back home, right above my first knife," Marley told him.

"I think I'm missing something," Jay said, looking between the two in confusion.

"Did I miss it?" Butch asked, skidding into the room followed by his teammates. The other three fourths of team JEMC blinked at the older team.

"Dude… why would he be interested in this match?" Jay asked.

"Hey Butch~!" Marley sang, slinging her primary weapon back onto her back. "Thanks for setting this up… but your a wee bit late." Her team shared a look between themselves before sharing a look with Butch's.

"A wee bit?" all six of them said while Butch just moaned in disappointment. Then the rest of what Marley said sunk in and they turned to her with varying expressions of shock and surprise. "He set this up?!" Marley giggled in an unsettling manner, hugging Butch's arm.

"Yep~! And he's taking me to dinner in town! See you guys later~!" she sang before dragging the willing Butch off. The remaining six Beacon students blinked at each other.

"So… you guys want to… hang out? Or something?" Jay asked.

"Sure," Alec said with a shrug.

"Cool. So… what do we do?" Caleb asked.

"How do your Semblances work?" Emily asked. Instantly, Caleb grabbed to two nearest him and ran as though a pack of beowolves were on his heels. Jay swiftly grabbed Alec and followed.

"Hey! What!?"

"If Emily or Marley ask you anything related to medicine or science, it's best to run… Unless you're into spending hours talking science," Jay said.

"Or you're okay with getting dissected,"Caleb added. The upperclassmen stared at them in shock.

"That last bit is mostly for Marley," Jay said, "but Emily would hold you down while the Mad Surgeon would cut you open." The stares continued. "Yes, we've had experience with this."

"Dude… you got one of the insane teams."

"Bruh… you have no idea," Caleb moaned.

/*/

"I'm impressed, Chi. You didn't mention your reference sense even when there were… three in a row," regenengel3 remarked.

"I felt they spoke for themselves," Chi said. "Plus Jay called them out on it. I'm good."

"I don't know. Maybe you should run a test on his code," Doc suggested.

"I'm a Mass Comm major, not Computer Science," regenengel3 deadpanned. "Besides, A.I's are a bit outside common knowledge, seeing as they're still bound to smartphones and the sci-fi genre."

"Really? Red vs Blue is sci-fi?" Doc asked.

"Yep. Anything with advanced space travel is still sci-fi for me," regenengel3 revealed. "Now, I think this is a good enough stopping point. Next time we check in at Beacon… actually, I don't know what JEMC will be doing next time we check in. But I can tell you that the next Arc we see should be Jaune. Or will it? You decide! Even though I don't get many reviews… Guess this story is too disjointed and confusing for people to keep up with." Chi and Doc watched the author hunch over the desk and begin to play with randomly appearing pennies, the picture of childhood depression.

"Well… we like it, don't we Chi?" Doc tried. Regenengel3 scoffed.

"You like it because I want you to," she pointed out. "Who's to say you'd still enjoy it if some other author started writing you? Like, if I still wrote the one-shots but someone else wrote the commentary. Would you be so positive about it then?" Chi sighed while Doc pouted at the woman.

"You're determined to be depressed… aren't you," the medic declared.

"Sure am."

"If you got more reviews, would that make you happy?"

"Maybe. And some suggestions for more senerios. Why does no-one offer suggestions, Doc?"

"Maybe because they can't compare to your crazy brain?" Chi offered.

"Oh, I know there are people out there who can match and best my crazy brain on this site," regenengel3 countered. "Then again, I can understand not reviewing. I rarely review stories myself. Quite unsporting of me, eh?"

"Why do I feel a tingle on the edge of my reference sense?" Chi asked.

"Because it was a stretch," regenengel3 said. "Jak X: Combat Racing. Krew's speech. He says 'quite unsporting of me really' after revealing that he poisoned the wine they toasted his death with."

"Yikes, that is cutthroat. And kinda morbid," Doc said. Regenengel3 shrugged.

"Video game crime lord for ya. Anyway, hope ya'll liked this. Let me know what you'd like to see in the future. Regenengel3 out," The camera cut out and the author vanished. Doc sighed and rubbed his forehead through his helmet.

"Let's get some rest partner. Tomorrow's going to be another crazy day," Chi told him.

"Are there even days in this place?" Doc grumbled.

"Maybe, I can't really tell," Chi answered.

"Sometimes… I really hate my life."