[REFINED Oct. 24, 2018] Author's Note: About the timeline... it's confusing. I mean the show's timeline, not mine, although that probably is a little confusing too. Playing fast and loose with time is a pretty easy tool to make things fit for writers, which is why I'm writing this AN, so you guys can understand what's happening.
So in the show, the length of each "semester" is dubious. Roosterteeth is based in Texas, so is it based on typical US school semesters? Because that would make them 4-5 months, but Vol. 1 does not seem to be that long. It feels a couple of weeks long, really, which is where this ties in to the story. Basically, I, as the Sovereign Writer of This Fic, have decided that events for Volumes 1-2 will both take place within the same semester, and Volume 3 events will take place in the beginning of the second semester.
What does that mean for now? Well, we just got past Forever Fall and we are barreling headlong into the "Blake Runs Away" plotpoint, which normally leads to docks and then the end of the volume/semester. Now? After this arc wraps itself up, we'll just go straight into Volume 2 territory. This does mean that the Food Fight looses its original context, happening on the first day of the second semester. Who knows, maybe it will show up anyways; it isn't as if we know of a character who has been enjoying being a jerk and antagonizing Cardin, and it certainly isn't as if Cardin would overreact and cause a scene...
Chapter 8: "You're such a sap, too, you know that? I know you won't listen to this, but ignore the problems of others. Everyone has problems, so no one is special. And we're all alone in this world. Don't waste your time trying to change that." - Raven Branwen
Jaune's POV
There are few things in this world that can make me wish I was listening to Raven lecture me. Actually, before coming to Beacon, there were zero things that could do that, but it appears that Ozpin has found a way to weaponize boredom: Professor Port's lectures. Seriously, all this man does is talk about his exaggerated tales of killing Grimm, and somehow, he's such a poor storyteller that he even makes that boring. To my left, my team shared that sentiment, as Pyrrha's eyes were closed, Nora's head was face-down on the table, and Ren…well, Ren looked normal, but there was even more of a glaze over his eyes than normal. To my right, Ruby was doodling away in her notebook and Yang was playing on her scroll underneath the table. On the other side of Yang was an empty chair and at the end sat probably the only person who cared to take these lectures seriously in Weiss, but even for all her efforts, she looked like she was about to doze off, too.
Oh yeah, and I shouldn't even be conscious right now. I didn't make it back to Beacon until, like, 3:30 in the morning, and naturally a lecture as boring as Port's can only take place at 8am. The fact that I didn't drop unconscious on the spot was thanks to a miracle of science I like to call 'overdosing on energy drinks and coffee.'
"So, is Blake so mad at Weiss that she wouldn't even sit in the same class?" I whispered over to Ruby, whose pen slipped and left a thick mark across half of her doodle. Yang perked up too and put her scroll away, leaning over to eavesdrop.
"Uh huh…well…yeah, sure. Let's go with that." Ruby fumbled horribly, causing Yang to smack her forehead against the table.
"Ruby, I didn't think it was possible tell a lie worse than Jaune, who tells bad lies on purpose." Yang groaned from her spot on the table. I shot Yang a half-curious glare, not because she was wrong, but because she wasn't. I mean, it isn't like after the fiftieth time someone wouldn't realize I'm just lying for the sake of it, I guess. I don't even really need to keep that up since I'm pretty much giving up on Raven's lessons for me, but deep down, I knew a dark truth about myself: it is a lot of fun to be an asshole to everyone. And despite that, these guys have mostly drawn me in anyways, so why stop being a jerk now?
"We're…uh, having some team bonding troubles." Ruby admitted with a nervous grin as she flicked her eyes to Blake's empty seat. "Nothing to worry about, though. Team RWBY is okay!"
"She ran away, didn't she?" I asked, thinking back on the time I used my semblance with her. Something about her spoke of already being on the run, which turned out true (to her credit, she probably should have run away), and also spoke of a predisposition towards fleeing when things got hard, which I guessed here. It would make sense that if her own aura wanted her to run away, then that would be her go-to move. Then again, that's assuming a lot of things based on my semblance and the nature of aura and a lot of crap that was too confusing to think about, so I just settled on calling it a hunch.
"How did you know?" Yang accused, lifting her head from its spot on the table to give me a look. I didn't answer immediately, instead looking past Yang and Ruby to put eyes on Weiss, who was oblivious to our conversation. Ruby and Yang followed my eyes to the heiress.
"Lucky guess." I answered back, my point having been made. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to beat some sense into Weiss." Yang grumbled, cutting her eyes in Weiss' direction despite almost having her back to her at this point.
"We are not going to beat up Weiss. We'll go find Blake without her if we have to." Ruby countered, but not without showing a little bit of the same frustration towards Weiss. Angry Ruby comes off more as adorable than threatening, but I guess that's why you keep Yang around. More than that, though, her panic shone through her eyes, despite how much she looked to be trying to control herself.
"Weiss won't help?" I asked as we all looked back at the girl in question, who was still trying to take notes on some obviously-false story about Grimm in the sea. Yang wouldn't answer and would only glare and curl her hands into fists in an effort not to make a scene. To be honest, I would love to watch that meltdown, but it probably would be best to avoid it.
"We had a… forced heart-to-heart moment of our own last night." Ruby admitted shyly with a little color in her cheeks as she pointedly did not look at Yang, who was giving Ruby a flat look. "It…didn't really work so well. Not as well as Nora's seems to have, at least."
"MISS ROSE!" Professor Port's voice boomed out, apparently for once in his life having actually bothered to check if his class was paying attention. "Do you have any reason to be distracting Mr. Arc from my lecture? As a future Huntsman, he will no doubt need the information I'm offering to save his and others' lives, after all." If there was a button in front of Ruby that would have killed her instantly, I suspect she would have slammed it so hard it broke, as any color from her face drained and she sunk so low in her chair that I thought she was actually trying to hide under the table.
"Sorry, professor." I countered for Ruby, who was still frozen and making some sort of babbling noise. "Ruby was just asking me how many Beowolves I thought it would take to bring you down in a fight."
"Jaune, what are you doing?" Yang snapped at me from under her breath.
"Mmhmm." Professor Port rang out, unreadable as to whether or not he was buying it. "And what did you say to her in return?"
"I didn't say anything." I answered, letting my words settle in the air for a few moments. "I'm still counting." Silence hung in the air as his eyes—well, his eyebrows—stared at me.
"Well, my boy, so am I!" Port cried out with a hearty laugh, much to the relief of my row of friends. "In the future, Ms. Rose, please try to contain your awe until after class. I do keep office hours to answer questions just like that." His focus shifted back to Ruby, who was still recovering but was finally breathing again, which was an improvement. Her face was no longer as pale as Weiss, which was even better. "And, for autographs." With that, the professor turned back around and launched back into a story about...tentacle Grimm? Is that even a thing? I thought that was just a Mistralian...uh, 'folklore' thing...
"There is no way that just happened." Yang leaned over to whisper once Professor Port jumped back into whatever weird story he had been telling beforehand.
"What were we talking about?" I asked to deflect Yang's comment. In truth, I felt really good about myself, but I really hadn't even expected that to work. Honestly, like Yang said earlier, I was trying to lie badly to take the pressure off Ruby, but if he wanted to fall for it, then I would absolutely make a note of that in the future. "Oh yeah, Ruby's failed feelings-sharing session and shortcomings as a team leader."
"Jaaaaaune." Ruby whined.
"Yeah, I really don't think we should talk about this with, uh, certain parties so close." Yang replied, nudging her head over towards Weiss. "Let's just say they were arguing and Blake dropped a bombshell before walking out."
"What sort of bombshell?" I asked, ignoring Yang's plan to not talk about it entirely. I had a pretty good idea of what Blake could have said to shock them, but I wasn't sure just how much Blake would have said and, more importantly, how much I should pretend not to know, so I needed to dig around a little bit.
"Didn't I just say not to—"
"Blake's a faunus!" Ruby shot out, cutting Yang off before covering her mouth with both of her hands, instantly regretting having said anything.
"Oh, wow. A faunus. That's terrible." I drawled out and overplayed my surprise in an attempt to mock them, partially because I just wanted to mock them, but also because I had a legitimate reason, too. By mocking the supposedly big reveal, it might irk them, and they might defend themselves by telling any other, more serious things they learned but wanted to hide, like, oh, I don't know, Blake being a terrorist.
"I know, right? Wait, no, that's not what I meant!" Ruby blurted out again, with Yang looking like she was seriously considering strangling her. My little games were working on Ruby, but Yang saw right through them and was not having it. "She was also—" Ruby's words were cut off as Yang very forcefully clamped her hands over her mouth. I had heard all I needed, though.
"In the White Fang?" I completed.
"How did you know?" Yang asked with an edge to her voice, still not letting Ruby speak despite her sister's frantic efforts to pull her arm off.
"I didn't. Not until you just confirmed it." I teased back, earned a scowl from Yang. It wasn't anything compared to Weiss, but it got the point across. "And that explains why Miss SDC wouldn't exactly want to help find her. What are you two going to do about it?"
"We…" Yang emphasized, again cutting her eyes to Weiss, "…are going to find her and drag her back here for another mandatory heart-to-heart session, but this time, I'm going to run it."
"Yeah, that didn't work so well for me." Ruby mumbled, trying to shrink out of the way of the glare Yang was giving off.
"How are you going to find her?"
"We're going to just search through Vale and ask people if they've seen her." Ruby answered back quietly, likely aware of the fruitlessness of that option. Vale was a big place and it wasn't as if they knew where Blake would go in Vale, because Blake was new here and wouldn't know anywhere specific to go.
"You can't track her scroll?" I asked to test what options they even had. In all likeliness, Blake would be smart enough to have it turned off, or at least only turn it on for a few seconds at a time when needed.
"Not without reporting her missing." Yang replied with a frown. "We don't want to get her in trouble before we've even gotten to talk with her about things."
"Plus, then they'd know I suck as a team leader." Ruby added on dramatically.
"Yeah, tell me about it." I teased.
"Hey!" Ruby whined back, recognizing the joke but still not appreciating it.
"Can we help look for her?" I offered. "My team really isn't doing much, and I'm sure Nora could probably track her better than a GPS if she thought Blake needed some…adjusting."
"Adjusting? Is that what happened to you?" Ruby asked.
"Let's not make this about me. Do you want help looking for her?"
"Yeah, sure. The more the merrier, right?" Yang asked, cutting Weiss one last glare as the bell rung and people trampled over each other to escape Professor Port hellish lectures.
Honestly, searching through Vale to find Blake really hasn't been that bad. I suggested that we should maximize our Blake-finding capability by splitting up and covering as much ground as possible, and if that just so happened to get me away from everyone and give me space to think, then that was completely a byproduct and not at all what I intended back when I offered to help look for Blake. I wasn't even really doing a whole lot of searching, either, because honestly, going shop to shop and showing people Blake's photo was not going to work. Instead, I had ducked into some back-alley coffee shop where my teammates couldn't have seen me unless they walked inside and looked around, giving me the privacy I needed. I had two different people to contact on my scroll, and I didn't need either of them being interrupted. I opened up my contacts and clicked on the first one, Blake. It registered somewhere in the back of my mind that I never actually added any of my friends numbers in my scroll; since these were Beacon's scrolls, they already had the contact info of all other Beacon scrolls, so I could start a conversation with anyone. Naturally, I had done this with precisely zero people, but Nora created a group chat for Team JNPR and for both Team JNPR and Team RWBY, so all I had to do was click on Blake's name out of the group chat and start a private chat.
Me: We need to talk. Your team isn't tracking your scroll yet, and I'm alone.
I sent the message and then got busy on my other task. Without any idea of how long it would be before Blake checked her scroll—if she even did, that is—I decided to go ahead and get other things done. I flipped through my file-reading app until I had opened up my hidden messages. I had already sent Raven the details I had discovered last night during my little stint at the docks, and it appeared she had some intel for me, sent from one of the numerous numbers she has.
R25: Sources telling me SDC has a shipment coming in Tuesday night. Is an unmarked, unguarded shipment. Off the books, so they won't expect it to be hit.
Me: How do you know about it then?
Tuesday, huh? That means tomorrow night, which gives me time to prepare. Chances are, the White Fang wouldn't have to go far from their warehouse to hit the container, and if they were thorough enough, they could even stash it in their warehouse without anyone knowing, allowing them to come back when the heat was off. And if that was their plan, then Raven was about to steal a lot of dust from the White Fang.
My phone buzzed in my hands, and I clicked on the notification to reveal it was Blake messaging me back.
Blake: How do I know you're not setting me up?
Me: Your team knows you're White Fang, so I don't have leverage on you.
Me: Mine doesn't know about what we discussed, so you have leverage on me.
Me: You don't need to trust me if you can leverage me.
In all honestly, after the intervention Nora staged yesterday, I don't really think that the leverage Blake has would really matter all that much anymore, but if it helped me get through, it couldn't hurt to try. I would feel infinitely more comfortable reaching out to someone if I felt that I had enough blackmail on them that they wouldn't betray me, so I was hoping that offering that would ease Blake's tensions a little. And I mean, for as lenient as Nora and Ren seem to be, Pyrrha looked to be struggling with the newfound information of her partner being a criminal. If Blake came to her and just said the word 'bodies,' I can't be certain what would happen.
I flipped back over to the other messaging app, where Raven had already responded.
R25: This wasnt exactly a big secret
R25: Dust shipment expected at dusk. I assume I don't need to tell you to intervene
Me: I will be nearby and will let you know when it's going down. From there, you can coordinate how you want to get the dust.
My screen was suddenly occupied as I was receiving a call from, who else, Blake. I pulled out some headphones and plugged them in before answering the call; I may be secluded from my teammates, but I was still in a public shop, after all.
"Show me your surroundings." Blake's voice rang out over a black screen. I rolled my eyes but did so, flipping the phone around to show her that I was sitting in a secluded corner booth with no one nearby; that coupled with my headphones was enough for her to relax slightly, as she finally removed the covering from her camera, revealing herself in what also looked like a café, but not one I recognized. It was open air, but that was about the only detail I could make out from the area surrounding her, not that I knew anything about the layout of Vale. "Okay, that's good. Why did you need to talk?" Her tone implied she knew the answer to that, but she waited for my reply nonetheless.
"Oh, no big deal, actually. Ruby and Yang were just sharing with me how their teammate ran away during class. Really sad story; Ruby was bawling and mumbling something about being a horrible team leader and wanting to quit Beacon…"
"Did…did she really?" Blake asked, her nervousness being overtaken as a flash of guilt washed over her face.
"No, but they feel awful and they're hunting throughout Vale to find you. You need to come back." I answered, not wasting any time cutting into her.
"I…you know I can't do that, Jaune. They know."
"I know that. Yang and Ruby don't care; they just want their teammate back." I countered, not being able to afford Blake any leeway.
"And Weiss?" Blake asked back with a frown. "Are you going to tell me that little miss Schnee Dust Corp is willing to let my past go?"
"Look, Blake, I'm sure you two don't like each other, but you left the…you left them." I caught myself before I mentioned the name of a terrorist group in public. "If that isn't something to bond with her over, I don't know what could be."
"She won't see it that way. She'll turn on me the first chance she gets." Blake answered back with a frown. Her ears—oh, she has cat ears now? Neat—drooped and her eyes didn't have any fight left in them. She looked tired, like she just couldn't put up with it anymore, which might explain why she ran. Leading a double life at Beacon hasn't been exactly easy for me, either.
"Why hasn't she yet?" I asked, challenging her to at least consider other options. "She might be angry, but she hasn't turned you in directly, so she clearly isn't sure what to do. If you come back now, you can put all this behind you."
"I can't come back yet, Jaune. I can't… I can't face Weiss without proof." Blake refused to meet my eyes, instead looking down at her lap.
"Proof of what?"
"Proof that the White Fang isn't working with Torchwick. That's how our argument started, and if I can just get to the bottom of it, I'll feel confident enough to come back to them." Blake answered, a twinge of hope finding its way into her voice and her eyes. Even her ears seemed to perk back up a little. Idealism, plain and simple; one of Raven's least favorite things ever, if how much she complained about it was any indication.
"How long is that going to take?" I asked, my voice making it clear that I did not like this plan at all.
"I don't know."
"How are you going to do it?" I added on sternly.
"I don't know yet."
"What happens when you're wrong?"
"When I'm wrong? What do you mean?" Blake asked, a little confused.
"Let's say you do find the White—let's say you find them. What happens if they are working with Torchwick?" I pressed further.
"Jaune, I'm telling you, they would never—"
"But what if, Blake!?" I raised my voice slightly, trying my best to break through to her without having to shout in the middle of this restaurant. "What are you going to do then?"
"I…I don't know." Blake answered quietly, shrinking back in on herself.
"I'll tell you what you're going to do then. You're going to come back to your team on your knees, begging them to forgive you and telling them everything they need to know." I commanded.
"But…what if I can't? What if they won't take me back and turn me in?" Blake's eyes were scared and her face belied her panic, but she seemed to be shrinking in further on herself.
"It doesn't matter, Blake! They're your best chance!" I wanted to shout at her. No, what I really want is to reach through the scroll and shake her until she comes to her senses. "Your best option in life now is Beacon. You can't go back to being a terrorist, Blake, and you've lost the ability to hide your past from everyone. Your best chance is trusting your team and letting them help you."
"I… I don't know."
"Blake, look me in the eyes and tell me that you think Ruby wouldn't do anything to help you. Look me in the eyes and tell me you think that Yang would give up on you, ever." I challenged, waiting patiently for Blake's response. She avoided my gaze, staring down at her lap again for a few seconds, before finally looking up at me with wide eyes.
"And Weiss?" Her voice was soft and timid.
"Forget Weiss, okay? What if you come back and she makes everyone choose between you or her, huh?" I asked challengingly before taking a deep huff of a breath. "Do you think that Ruby and Yang could find it in them to pick against you, knowing that you're here to be better? Do you think my team would side with Weiss, knowing how similar you and I are, especially once I pick your side? What is Weiss going to do, turn you in?"
"Yes! That's what I can't afford."
"So she goes to the Headmaster and tells him what he already knows, then what?"
"He...he what?!" Blake asked, startled.
"He and I have had several 'talks' so far, and he mentioned that I didn't have the darkest past in Beacon. So, unless there is another formerly-radical terrorist hiding somewhere in our class, I think he knows."
"That-"
"Doesn't matter." I cut her off, trying to get back to the point. "What matters is that you don't screw this up, Blake. You can't afford it."
"O-okay. I'll come back and tell them everything." Her head was bowed, but she looked up at me just enough so I could see her eyes. She was still scared and withdrawn, but she wasn't lying. She would come back.
"Good."
"After I find out about the White Fang."
"Blake, forget about—" It didn't matter, she had already hung up the call, leaving me ranting to no one. As much of a good person my team may think me to secretly be, that's not what this was about. Blake was a reflection of my own situation, and part of me needs to see things work out well for her. If she can't reconcile her past, then that means that I may not be able to either. Sure, our situations aren't exactly the same, but it's still something I need to see happen so I know that I have that option, too. If not, then that meant that there really may not be any escape from Raven and the tribe, and which would take away any options I had. To that end, it would be best not to tell the others than I had made contact with Blake, especially if she hadn't reached out to anyone else.
A buzz from my scroll broke me out of my thoughts again.
Blake: Thank you.
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, sure, just don't get caught and don't drag me down with you, kitty-ears. Seriously, kitty-ears, no wonder she hid those, or else no one would ever take her seriously. I know I won't be able to.
Well, since that didn't go horribly, I might as well check and see how the other thing was going. One downside to a hidden app that's designed to close itself whenever you aren't looking at it is that for every time you leave the app, you have to go through the process of unhiding the messages again. It took a whole, what, 15 seconds total out of my life? And yet, it was enough to get on my nerves.
R25: I'll send you a tactical plan tonight. All you need to do is be nearby the heist in a secure location I can teleport in from.
Perks of turning into a bird, I suppose. I won't have to stick my neck out trying to get us into any guarded areas. All I have to do is let Raven show up in the area with her portals, and then she can fly off to wherever the dust is and bring in her own reinforcements. It's not even necessary that I participate, too, and the less asked of me, the better.
Well, with both of those things taken care of (more or less), that left me with one last thing to do. Seeing as my entire team plus Yang and Ruby were out searching the town, that meant there was no one back in Beacon to interrupt one last little chat I wanted to have.
Making my way to the airfield without running into any of the group went off without a hitch, and in a few minutes, I was back on Beacon's grounds, albeit a little queasy. From there, it was just a guessing game as to tracking them down. I tried the library first with no luck before going down to the private sparring rooms and, surely enough, Weiss was in there, slicing away at training dummies. Her movements were rigid as she worked through forms and sliced through dummies with speed and power; muscle memory training, as it were, where she made sure she worked on absolutely perfect form so her natural form would improve automatically. Such a typical 'duelist' thing to do, too; one of these days, she'll fight someone who uses that rigidity against her.
Say, now if that isn't an idea.
"You know, Ruby, just because you beg a seventh time doesn't mean my answer will change." Weiss called out angrily without looking, apparently having heard the doors as I entered. She delivered a powerful thrust with perfect form, but very slowly as she focused on her precision down to the millimeter.
"Who said I was here to beg?" I called out, causing Weiss to turn around in surprise. "You know, taking your anger out on these dummies isn't going to help anything."
"What, now you are going to lecture me?" Weiss huffed with a cross of her arms. "What could you possibly do differently than Ruby or Yang? You can't be as mean as Yang, and I know you can't be as nice as Ruby."
"That's hurtful." I teased, to be greeted with a scowl. "Well, I'll only lecture you for as long as I can last in a spar." I offered, or, well, challenged. Weiss gave me an apprehensive look and studied me for a few moments.
"You don't even have your weapon."
"Nope." I confirmed, walking over to a rack on the wall and picking up a training sword. It was dulled on all edges and was built in a hand-and-a-half style—or really, it was built to that length; saying this thing was any sort of style would be an insult. It was a crappy weapon and both of us could see that. "How long do you think I'll last with this?" It was bait, and she probably knew it as such, but it was really good bait.
"Alright, if it's going to get you to leave me alone sooner, I accept." Weiss took a few steps away from the dummies and brought her rapier up in an offensive stance. I did the same and took up a very plain stance with my sword held at my right hip.
"So, why do you hate faunus?" I asked immediately.
"Why do I what? I don't hate th—" I cut her off by charging her, which she recovered in time to avoid. She tried to throw a small cut once she was clear of my blade, but I brought it back around and caught it on the blade, forcing her to retreat. "What sort of interrogation is this if you aren't going to let me answer?"
"Why do you hate Blake?" I asked again, noting that her guard never dropped and she watched me more warily as she spoke.
"I never said I hated her specifically, just what she represents." Weiss summoned a glyph beneath her that shot her forwards at me with incredible speed. Out of pure reactions I was able to knock the tip of her blade to the side and sidestep to avoid taking any damage, but Weiss' momentum kept her well out of reach of any follow-up strike. She stopped as she collided with another glyph that launched her up above me before her feet struck yet another that was aimed to shoot her down at me. I did not feel like parrying such a thin blade from directly above me, so I rolled out of the way before Weiss could even shoot herself down at me. She created a glyph underneath where she landed and immediately shot forwards at me in a lunge. I was just barely getting to my feet and still had my back to her when she started moving, but she didn't fully capitalize on her speed, instead spending precious time perfecting the form of her strike over capitalizing on my opening. It was enough time for me to spin around as I stood up, catching the underside of her blade with mine and knocking it straight up into a gridlock with my blade. In such close quarters, my strength advantage let me use one hand to keep enough pressure on the locked blades that she had to keep both hands on her rapier, although it didn't help that after her lunge she was out of position and was losing the leverage battle because of my height.
"Really, are you sure you don't hate her? That's what it looks like to the rest of us." We were face to face now and Weiss was struggling not to be pushed over and had no means of disengaging safely. "It sure seems like you don't want her to come back." Weiss didn't react much, but her eyes did shift slightly in response, thought for better or worse I could not tell.
With my other hand, I reached up and grabbed the wrist of the arm facing me and tightened a grip. I could feel the muscles in Weiss' wrist tighten in anticipation that I would try to disarm her, which also meant her arms were going stiff to resist any slaps or pulls. Instead, I pushed up with that hand and held her arms in place while I disentangled my sword and swiped down at her exposed underside, releasing the grip on her arm and breaking off to create space all in one motion. With an actual sword, that would have done some serious aura damage, but with a sparring sword, I would be lucky for that to have taken 8 percent.
"Well, I'm not keen on trying to sleep in a room with someone who might try to murder me because of who my family is." Weiss shot back, her temper flaring, whether from the subject matter or anger after taking damage.
"Trust me, Weiss, if anyone on your team was going to kill you, they already would have."
Weiss angrily charged in again, probing me to see how well I defended. She threw a thrust that I knocked aside and then went to slice at her exposed arms, which she dropped down to avoid taking damage and spun her arms back around and over her shoulder to go for another thrust, this time behind my guard after my missed strike. I reversed direction and knocked her blade above my shoulder with my cross-guard before swinging my sword up to fully knock the blade out of the way before coming down with a strike to her chest. Without her rapier ready to defend she was forced to step to the side and back to avoid contact, taking us out of range again.
"And what am I supposed to do, huh? Just forgive this…this terrorist who worked for the people who have been hunting my family?!" Weiss shouted, her patience wearing thinner and thinner.
"What, like they don't deserve it." I challenged back, getting under her skin as intended.
"Why you little!" Weiss screamed as she lunged out again. I stepped to the side and allowed the blow to miss by inches as I threw a small slash of my own to force her back. She took the damage instead, trying to push her attack further in her anger. A slice at my face dodged, a poke at my leg deflected, a slash across my chest parried and knocked aside, a return slash the opposite direction ducked. Weiss was angry, but her form was impeccable…and slow. I had trained under Raven, who refused to let me learn to block and parry before I could dodge; I was never agile enough to out-dodge Raven, but I had honed myself to dodge just the amount I needed to avoid contact against a much better fighter than Weiss. Right now, that meant that I was pretty good at avoiding anything Weiss could throw at me, making her wear herself out during her outburst while also frustrating her further.
"Would you stop dodging?!" Weiss yelled out of frustration during her strikes. "You aren't even that agile! How are you avoiding me!?"
"Why doesn't Blake deserve a chance here, huh?" I yelled back at her as I avoided a stab at my face. "What's so special about you that Blake doesn't have!?" Weiss finally had enough of this game and threw a heavy chopping slice (that made no sense for a rapier) that I caught on my blade, putting us into another deadlock.
"Because I'm not a terrorist! I haven't done anything evil!" Weiss shouted at me with rage behind her eyes.
"I'm sure Blake could give all sorts of stories about the SDC that would beg to differ!" I shouted back, matching her intensity. Weiss' brow furrowed and her knuckles went white as she gripped her rapier even tighter.
"Even if any of that holds merit, I didn't have anything to do with it! I am not my family!"
"And Blake isn't evil!" I broke the gridlock by lunging my sword upwards. Weiss disengaged and threw her weight behind a slash at my side but was surprised when her blade bounced off my side, my semblance having flared the aura there moments before and blocked her attack, limiting any damage. Weiss looked up just in time to see me bring my sword back down across her body, knocking her backwards and taking the fire out of her.
"You never even gave her a chance to explain, did you?" I asked Weiss from her new spot on the ground. She was coming down off her rage and didn't respond, but her eyes were wide. "When did she leave? Did she ever personally do anything terrible? Does she denounce them? These are all important things to know that you didn't care enough to find out!"
"I-I didn't…need to know. That's…that's not just something you c-can forgive, right?" Weiss asked timidly, her confusion and uncertainty showing through her eyes and her demeanor having changed now that her anger was subsiding. I had finally broken through to her.
"I sure hope it is." I threw the sword down on the ground between us. "If you're going to start kicking out everyone who doesn't have a clean past or a perfect upbringing, then I'll see myself out. I'll be sure to bring Nora and Ren with me when I leave. Maybe you guys can replace Blake with Pyrrha." I turned around and marched off as the words hung in the air, only now realizing how legitimately angry I really was. I thought was just getting into things to work up Weiss and make her see things differently, or at least, that was the plan, but I had somehow struck a nerve with myself as well.
"J-Jaune, wait!" Weiss called out very timidly. I didn't want to turn around. I didn't want to stop, but something in her voice struck me, some part of how helpless it sounded resonated with that part of me that Raven hates. "I don't...I can't just kick out everyone like that."
"Good. At least you understand the most basic point I was making." I shot back angrily.
"H-how do I fix this? What do I do?"
"You should look for her. You should be her teammate when she needs you." I answered, turning around and walking back to where Weiss was still on the ground. "Let her explain herself and tell you who she was, who she is now, and who she wants to be, and if she's honest, make your judgments based on that."
"I…I will. I promise." A little bit of resolve shone through Weiss' eyes. I offered her my hand and she took it readily as I pulled her up onto her feet.
"Don't promise me. I don't care." The look Weiss gave me told me she didn't believe that. I struggle to believe it myself. "Promise yourself."
"I will." Weiss reassured me. I'm still not sure if she really gets it, but I absolutely don't want to ruin whatever I have going on here. "How do I find her? It doesn't sound like Ruby has had much luck."
"I…look, Weiss, you can't tell Ruby or Yang, but I spoke to Blake today." Weiss's eyebrows rose in surprise, but she didn't interrupt. "She's too scared to face you without finding out whether the talk about Torchwick and the White Fang are true. She promised me that she'd come back once she found out." Weiss' eyes were wide, resolve and hope having settled in where rage and then uncertainty once reigned.
"I…I didn't mean for her to…" Weiss trailed off, before shaking the thoughts from her head. "What do you need me to do?"
"I don't know. I couldn't stop her and I'm afraid she's going to do something stupid. If you could magically find her before she does that, then that would be best." It was a poorly-timed joke, but the look in Weiss eyes told me that that didn't matter. She looked like she had just been challenged and had already determined that anything short of success would not be tolerated.
"Alright then, if that's what it takes, consider it done." Weiss emphasized her words by walking of and out of the room, but not before stopping to look into my eyes, letting me see how serious she was; she looked as if she was about to say something, some sort of apology or sappy thanks for intervening, but she never did. She walked out, leaving me alone with both a training sword and a mess of practice dummies spread across the ground.
"Well, someone's gonna have to clean this mess up." I mumbled to myself, picking up the training sword and absentmindedly running my finger over the dull blade. I tossed the blade on the ground towards the dummies, making a loud clang as I walked out of the room. "But it's not gonna be me."
Closing Thoughts: Blake has run away and with Jaune now determined to let himself form some attachments, it makes some sense that he would start by trying to reconnect Blake with her team. After all, technically he is closest to her after Forever Fall, plus her situation mirrors his a little, so there is a selfish angle to wanting her to reconcile.
That this drives him into a confrontation with Weiss is interesting, though terribly needed on Weiss' part. I will be honest and admit that Best Girl was easily in my bottom tier of all RWBY characters pretty much until Volumes 4 and 5, because I could never get past how much I hated V1 Weiss. Now, she's in my top five and she's currently my #1 Living Character in the show (RIP Pyrrha, Roman). Yang is right behind her, too, though I didn't hate Yang in the early volumes; I just didn't find her compelling. Both of their character growths in V4 (and some of it finished up in V5) were fantastic.
After having rewatched the whole show in preparation of V6, I can honestly say I have no idea why Yang wasn't top five from the start. I just...Yang's awesome. Don't know why that didn't ever click with me. The two characters I can see the most of myself in are probably Yang and Jaune, though more in the sense that we share a dry wit and tendency for sarcasm. In serious matters, I'm probably more of an Ozpin than anyone else.
So basically, I am Qrow.
Funnily enough, yet another character who has flown up my list is none other than Jaune, who suffered from the same affliction as V1 Weiss: being so freaking annoying. He got better faster than Weiss for me, so by the time V3 came around I found him much more likable and was an ardent Arkos shipper. sigh. V4 Jaune kinda took a back-seat, other than that heart-wrenching Training Video scene, but oh my god Volume 5 Jaune was incredible. I cannot get over how great of a Voice Actor that Miles Luna is and damn did his confrontation with Cinder get good. They gave us a glimpse of a broken, angry, suicidal Jaune with nothing left to lose yet still preserved Jaune as a mostly powerless character on his own. I really want to see Broken Jaune start to spiral because 1) he still can be developed and that's a fantastic chance for it and 2) he can't do it alone, so someone needs to help him here.
WI'm curious about any characters that have grown on you guys recently, so let me know during your comments when you tear my soul to pieces telling me how I'm a terrible writer! :P
Comment of the Week: by Eomer on Ch. 7
"This was a great chapter! Jaune's internal issues seem to be accelerating, and I loved the whole discussion with NPR; very in character for them. The only nitpick I have is that you have Jaune shoving his scroll under a dumpster, and then two paragraphs later he uses its zoom function to identify a White Fang member. Did Raven give him an additional scroll to his (presumably) school-issued one?"
...fcuk.
Yeah yeah...no, I've spent all week thinking of any strange plot points or things I might have said to justify that but I got nothing. Such an obscure thing for me to specify, too. I went back and re-edited the chapter an additional time because I was concerned about the "Nora Is OP" confrontation scene, and yet somehow I missed that.
What I'm really ticked about is that Eomer left this comment like an hour after I went through all my documents on this site and deleted everything that had been posted so I didn't accidentally upload the same chapter twice, meaning going back and changing that would be much harder.
Oh well, I'll chalk that up as one of my two biggest mistakes so far in this story, the other being not making Nora team leader. Team NARP? Team VARN (Team Varnish? Does that count as a color?)?
Oh well. Thanks for the heads up Eomer, and for even giving me an out with the whole "second phone" idea, but nope, that was just a good ole fashioned goof! xD
I've since gone back and re-uploaded that chapter with like literally four sentences changed to fix that, so if it really bothered you, it's fixed now. I made sure to go OUT OF MY WAY TO EXPLAIN THAT JAUNE CANNOT ZOOM IN BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE HIS SCROLL
This is more of a dig at myself than anything, so if you're down to see me make fun of myself, you can go read that part again.
The change will not have any effects on the story as a whole, so you will not be missing anything if you take it at my word that I changed it so that Jaune had to get closer to see the mask. Once again, thanks to Eomer for spotting it!...just, like, next time spot it an hour earlier so I save some work! :P